Ballentine Partners LLC Has $218,000 Stock Holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Ballentine Partners LLC reduced its stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 4.3% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 2,722 shares of the company’s stock after selling 122 shares during the period. Ballentine Partners LLC’s holdings in Toro were worth $218,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. grew its stake in Toro by 24.5% in the 3rd quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after buying an additional 28,453 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toro in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. increased its stake in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% during the third 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. Raymond James & Associates lifted its holdings in Toro by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock worth $24,172,000 after purchasing an additional 14,950 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,261,000. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Toro Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE:TTC opened at $86.01 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $83.37 and its 200 day simple moving average is $86.09. The Toro Company 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 company has a market capitalization of $8.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.45 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 (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.71 EPS. Toro’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. This is a positive change 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 dividend yield of 1.77%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.91%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Raymond James dropped their target price on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $93.75.

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.