State of Michigan Retirement System Trims Stock Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

State of Michigan Retirement System decreased its position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 1.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 24,332 shares of the company’s stock after selling 300 shares during the period. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Toro were worth $1,949,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in TTC. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. grew its position in Toro by 24.5% in the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,527,000 after acquiring an additional 28,453 shares during the period. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% during the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,418,000 after purchasing an additional 72,962 shares during the period. Eagle Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Toro during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,261,000. Finally, Point72 DIFC Ltd raised its holdings in Toro by 101.6% in the 3rd quarter. Point72 DIFC Ltd now owns 13,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,127,000 after buying an additional 6,550 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of TTC stock opened at $73.44 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $80.94 and a two-hundred day moving average of $83.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.39 billion, a PE ratio of 18.31 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The Toro Company has a 52 week low of $72.18 and a 52 week high of $100.93.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its earnings results 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 firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.71 earnings per share. Toro’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. This is a boost 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.07%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.87%.

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

Toro 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.