The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the four ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $93.75.

Separately, 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 report on Friday, December 20th.

Toro Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE TTC opened at $79.27 on Friday. Toro has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The business’s 50 day moving average is $82.62 and its two-hundred day moving average is $84.90. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.77 and a beta of 0.72.

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

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced 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 represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.92%. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 37.91%.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan 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 plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Toro by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,959,875 shares of the company’s stock valued at $169,639,000 after buying an additional 29,105 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 5.3% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,187,550 shares of the company’s stock valued at $95,123,000 after purchasing an additional 60,068 shares during the period. Amundi grew its stake in Toro by 30.3% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 1,121,116 shares of the company’s stock worth $89,701,000 after purchasing an additional 260,746 shares in the last quarter. King Luther Capital Management Corp increased its holdings in Toro by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. King Luther Capital Management Corp now owns 1,043,833 shares of the company’s stock worth $83,611,000 after purchasing an additional 36,750 shares during the period. Finally, US Bancorp DE raised its position in 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 purchasing an additional 24,596 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

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.