Toro Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) was the target of some unusual options trading on Wednesday. Stock investors purchased 1,176 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of 1,709% compared to the average volume of 65 put options.

Insider Activity

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Toro

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC grew its stake in shares of Toro by 20.4% in the first quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 9,750 shares of the company’s stock valued at $893,000 after buying an additional 1,651 shares in the last quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its stake in shares of Toro by 0.7% in the first quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 152,675 shares of the company’s stock valued at $13,990,000 after buying an additional 1,038 shares in the last quarter. JLB & Associates Inc. grew its stake in shares of Toro by 1.3% in the first quarter. JLB & Associates Inc. now owns 181,428 shares of the company’s stock valued at $16,624,000 after buying an additional 2,359 shares in the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC grew its stake in shares of Toro by 350.9% in the first quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 1,258 shares of the company’s stock valued at $115,000 after buying an additional 979 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Toro by 2.4% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 403,680 shares of the company’s stock valued at $36,989,000 after buying an additional 9,377 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:TTC opened at $87.21 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.11 billion, a PE ratio of 31.83 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 2.13 and a quick ratio of 0.86. The business has a 50-day moving average of $88.96 and a two-hundred day moving average of $89.01. Toro has a 12 month low of $78.35 and a 12 month high of $108.50.

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

Toro Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 1st were paid a $0.36 dividend. 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 currently 52.55%.

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.