Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Toro Put Options (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) saw some unusual options trading on Wednesday. Traders bought 1,176 put options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 1,709% compared to the typical volume of 65 put options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently commented on TTC. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on Toro from $102.00 to $92.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 6th. Northland Securities restated a “market perform” rating and issued a $100.00 price target on shares of Toro in a research report on Friday, September 6th. DA Davidson reduced their price target on Toro from $103.00 to $88.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, September 9th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $93.33.

Toro Stock Performance

NYSE TTC opened at $80.48 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $8.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.12 and a beta of 0.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.85, a current ratio of 1.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $85.43 and a 200-day moving average price of $88.39. Toro has a twelve month low of $77.15 and a twelve month high of $102.00.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 5th. The company reported $1.18 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.23 by ($0.05). Toro had a net margin of 8.89% and a return on equity of 25.94%. The firm had revenue of $1.16 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.95 earnings per share. Toro’s quarterly revenue was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Toro will post 4.16 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 11th. Investors of record on Monday, September 30th were paid a dividend of $0.36 per share. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.79%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 30th. Toro’s payout ratio is presently 37.80%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toro

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in TTC. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in Toro by 25.0% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 6,653,109 shares of the company’s stock valued at $609,626,000 after buying an additional 1,332,248 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its stake in Toro by 37,332.5% during the second quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 470,901 shares of the company’s stock valued at $44,034,000 after buying an additional 469,643 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. raised its position in Toro by 682.7% during the second quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 482,139 shares of the company’s stock valued at $45,085,000 after purchasing an additional 420,539 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC raised its position in Toro by 11,970.3% during the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 393,008 shares of the company’s stock valued at $36,750,000 after purchasing an additional 389,752 shares during the period. Finally, Champlain Investment Partners LLC raised its position in Toro by 11.5% during the first quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 2,725,651 shares of the company’s stock valued at $249,751,000 after purchasing an additional 280,855 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.