Victory Capital Management Inc. Purchases 362,634 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 693.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 414,961 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 362,634 shares during the quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. owned 0.41% of Toro worth $33,238,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Keybank National Association OH lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 8.7% during the 4th quarter. Keybank National Association OH now owns 3,630 shares of the company’s stock valued at $291,000 after buying an additional 292 shares during the period. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 1,023.0% during the 4th quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,707 shares of the company’s stock valued at $137,000 after buying an additional 1,555 shares during the period. US Bancorp DE lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 3.2% during the 4th quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 799,385 shares of the company’s stock valued at $64,031,000 after buying an additional 24,596 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 11,114 shares of the company’s stock valued at $890,000 after buying an additional 207 shares during the period. Finally, NewEdge Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of Toro by 22.8% in the 4th quarter. NewEdge Wealth LLC now owns 48,490 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,884,000 after purchasing an additional 9,018 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TTC has been the subject of several analyst reports. Northland Securities upgraded Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, February 24th. StockNews.com lowered Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Raymond James reduced their price objective on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Northland Capmk upgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Toro has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $91.75.

Toro Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of TTC stock opened at $73.44 on Monday. The Toro Company has a 52-week low of $72.18 and a 52-week high of $100.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.39 billion, a PE ratio of 18.31 and a beta of 0.70. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $80.94 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $83.50.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued its quarterly 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 return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.71 EPS. Toro’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a dividend of $0.38 per share. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.07%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.87%.

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to buyback 4,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

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.