The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) has received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the four brokerages that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $93.75.

Separately, Raymond James decreased 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.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Toro

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. UMB Bank n.a. raised its stake in Toro by 112.1% during the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 630 shares of the company’s stock valued at $55,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares in the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 850.0% in the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after buying an additional 765 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC raised its position in shares of Toro by 15.5% during the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock valued at $92,000 after buying an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 534.8% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock valued at $125,000 after acquiring an additional 1,123 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Bay Advisors LLC increased its stake in Toro by 87.2% during the fourth quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 1,657 shares of the company’s stock worth $133,000 after acquiring an additional 772 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Toro Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of TTC opened at $83.45 on Tuesday. Toro has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $83.21 and its 200-day moving average price is $86.24. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.81 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

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

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.82%. Toro’s payout ratio is 37.91%.

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.