The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.38

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, March 18th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Monday, March 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.38 per share on Monday, April 14th. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.09%.

Toro has raised its dividend payment by an average of 10.3% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 21 consecutive years. Toro has a payout ratio of 32.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Toro to earn $4.67 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.52 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 32.5%.

Toro Stock Down 0.6 %

TTC stock opened at $72.80 on Wednesday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $80.12 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $82.65. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. Toro has a 1-year low of $71.75 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The stock has a market cap of $7.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.16 and a beta of 0.70.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to buyback 4,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on TTC. Northland Capmk raised shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Raymond James dropped their target price on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price target on Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 7th. Northland Securities upgraded Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Finally, DA Davidson decreased their price target on Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $89.75.

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.