Retirement Systems of Alabama Acquires 322 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Retirement Systems of Alabama boosted its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 0.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 151,637 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 322 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabama owned about 0.15% of Toro worth $14,556,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 25.0% during the third quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 4,180,246 shares of the company’s stock worth $347,378,000 after buying an additional 835,637 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 249.0% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,061,930 shares of the company’s stock worth $88,246,000 after buying an additional 757,641 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 20.3% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,209,725 shares of the company’s stock worth $100,528,000 after buying an additional 204,542 shares in the last quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 2,481.2% during the third quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 74,985 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,231,000 after buying an additional 72,080 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank increased its holdings in Toro by 99.5% in the third quarter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank now owns 129,240 shares of the company’s stock valued at $10,740,000 after purchasing an additional 64,446 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Toro

In other news, VP Edric C. Funk sold 615 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.57, for a total transaction of $55,085.55. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 1,049 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $93,958.93. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, VP Edric C. Funk sold 615 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.57, for a total transaction of $55,085.55. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 1,049 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $93,958.93. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Gary Lee Ellis sold 5,192 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.75, for a total transaction of $460,790.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 33,051 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,933,276.25. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 1.62% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on TTC. TheStreet upgraded Toro from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Thursday, February 15th. DA Davidson increased their price objective on Toro from $93.00 to $95.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, March 14th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $105.60.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of Toro stock opened at $87.21 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 2.13, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $88.96 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $89.01. The Toro Company has a 1-year low of $78.35 and a 1-year high of $108.50. The company has a market cap of $9.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.83 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 7th. The company reported $0.64 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.66 by ($0.02). Toro had a return on equity of 26.66% and a net margin of 6.53%. The business had revenue of $1 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.98 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 12.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.3 EPS for the current year.

Toro Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 1st were given a dividend of $0.36 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 28th. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 52.55%.

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.