The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) has been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the four brokerages that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $93.75.

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

Institutional Trading of Toro

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of TTC. Asset Planning Inc bought a new position in shares of Toro in the fourth quarter worth about $31,000. Venturi Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Toro by 195.7% during the fourth quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 547 shares of the company’s stock worth $44,000 after buying an additional 362 shares during the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. increased its holdings in shares of 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 in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 54.6% in the 4th quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 807 shares of the company’s stock valued at $65,000 after acquiring an additional 285 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. grew its position in Toro by 850.0% during the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after acquiring an additional 765 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Toro Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of Toro stock opened at $80.17 on Friday. Toro has a 52-week low of $76.95 and a 52-week high of $100.93. The stock has a market cap of $8.11 billion, a PE ratio of 19.99 and a beta of 0.72. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $83.15 and a 200-day moving average of $85.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.71 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to buyback 4,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.91%.

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.