Toro Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) was the target of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock investors acquired 1,176 put options on the stock. This is an increase of 1,709% compared to the typical daily volume of 65 put options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Toro from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, June 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $98.75.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of Toro stock opened at $96.02 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 1.93. Toro has a 1 year low of $77.15 and a 1 year high of $104.70. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $90.79 and its 200-day simple moving average is $90.57. The firm has a market cap of $9.97 billion, a PE ratio of 37.95 and a beta of 0.69.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 6th. The company reported $1.40 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.29 by $0.11. Toro had a net margin of 6.00% and a return on equity of 25.04%. The company had revenue of $1.35 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.34 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.58 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up .7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Toro will post 4.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 11th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 18th were issued a dividend of $0.36 per share. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.50%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, June 18th. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 56.92%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Toro news, CEO Richard M. Olson sold 20,000 shares of Toro stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $95.19, for a total transaction of $1,903,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 17,913 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,705,138.47. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Corporate insiders own 1.62% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Toro

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in Toro by 6.1% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 11,239 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,079,000 after buying an additional 646 shares during the period. Mutual Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Toro during the fourth quarter worth about $227,000. Raymond James & Associates increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 23.3% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 265,204 shares of the company’s stock worth $25,457,000 after acquiring an additional 50,105 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Toro by 75.9% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 15,414 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,480,000 after purchasing an additional 6,651 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Accel Wealth Management acquired a new position in Toro during the 4th quarter valued at about $201,000. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

About Toro

The Toro Company designs, manufactures, markets, and sells professional turf maintenance equipment and services. It operates through two segments: Professional and Residential. The Professional segment offers turf and landscape equipment products, including sports fields and grounds mowing and maintenance equipment, golf course mowing and maintenance equipment, landscape contractor mowing equipment, landscape creation and renovation equipment, and other maintenance equipment; rental, specialty, and underground construction equipment, such as horizontal directional drills, walk and ride trenchers, stand-on skid steers, vacuum excavators, stump grinders, turf renovation products, asset locators, pipe rehabilitation solutions, materials handling equipment, and other after-market tools; and snow and ice management equipment, such as snowplows, as well as stand-on snow and ice removal equipment, such as snowplow, snow brush, and snow thrower attachments, salt and sand spreaders, and related parts and accessories for light and medium duty trucks, utility task vehicles, skid steers, and front-end loaders.