The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Brokerages

Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the four analysts that are covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month target price among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $93.75.

Separately, Raymond James lowered their price target on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 20th.

Toro Price Performance

Shares of NYSE TTC opened at $80.19 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.94 and a quick ratio of 0.85. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $83.39 and its 200-day simple moving average is $86.46. Toro has a 12 month low of $76.95 and a 12 month high of $100.93. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.05 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Toro had a net margin of 8.89% and a return on equity of 25.94%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.71 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Toro will post 4.16 EPS for the current year.

Toro declared that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.90%. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Toro

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its stake in Toro by 112.1% during the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 630 shares of the company’s stock worth $55,000 after buying an additional 333 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. boosted its position in shares of Toro by 850.0% during the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock valued at $74,000 after acquiring an additional 765 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC grew its holdings in shares of Toro by 15.5% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock valued at $92,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. increased its position in Toro by 534.8% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after purchasing an additional 1,123 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Bay Advisors LLC raised its stake in Toro by 87.2% during the fourth quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 1,657 shares of the company’s stock worth $133,000 after purchasing an additional 772 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Toro Company Profile

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.