Olympiad Research LP Sells 1,726 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Olympiad Research LP lowered its position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 35.1% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 3,195 shares of the company’s stock after selling 1,726 shares during the quarter. Olympiad Research LP’s holdings in Toro were worth $256,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 15,298 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,225,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 2.8% in the third quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC now owns 4,612 shares of the company’s stock valued at $400,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares in the last quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors now owns 6,945 shares of the company’s stock valued at $556,000 after purchasing an additional 139 shares in the last quarter. CWM LLC increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 15.5% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock valued at $92,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Empowered Funds LLC increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 7.1% in the third quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 2,366 shares of the company’s stock valued at $205,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Raymond James lowered their price target 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. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Toro presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Price Performance

TTC opened at $79.95 on Monday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $81.74 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $84.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81. The Toro Company has a 52 week low of $76.95 and a 52 week high of $100.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.05 billion, a PE ratio of 19.94 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, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.71 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to repurchase 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Toro 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.