The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Given Consensus Rating of “Hold” by Analysts

Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the four brokerages that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $93.75.

Separately, Raymond James dropped their price objective on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th.

Toro Trading Up 3.6 %

Shares of TTC opened at $80.19 on Tuesday. Toro has a 1 year low of $76.95 and a 1 year high of $100.93. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $83.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $86.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.94 and a quick ratio of 0.85. The firm has a market cap of $8.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.05 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a return on equity of 25.94% and a net margin of 8.89%. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.71 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that Toro will post 4.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. This is a positive change 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 was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

Toro declared that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Toro

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Point72 Asset Management L.P. raised its position in Toro by 682.7% during the 2nd quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 482,139 shares of the company’s stock worth $45,085,000 after buying an additional 420,539 shares during the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Toro by 11,970.3% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 393,008 shares of the company’s stock worth $36,750,000 after acquiring an additional 389,752 shares during the period. Nuance Investments LLC purchased a new position in shares of Toro during the third quarter worth $29,146,000. Marshall Wace LLP acquired a new position in Toro during the second quarter valued at $25,166,000. Finally, Ensign Peak Advisors Inc boosted its holdings in Toro by 41.0% in the second quarter. Ensign Peak Advisors Inc now owns 600,626 shares of the company’s stock valued at $56,165,000 after purchasing an additional 174,545 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.