Toro (NYSE:TTC) Shares Down 5.9% – Should You Sell?

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)’s stock price dropped 5.9% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as low as $74.12 and last traded at $73.38. Approximately 273,490 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 69% from the average daily volume of 890,845 shares. The stock had previously closed at $78.01.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TTC has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Northland Capmk upgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Raymond James cut their price objective on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Northland Securities upgraded Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, February 24th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Toro presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $7.43 billion, a PE ratio of 18.41 and a beta of 0.72. 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 simple moving average is $81.24 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $83.76.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 6th. The company reported $0.65 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.63 by $0.02. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. On average, equities research analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given 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 2.06%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 15,298 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,225,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 2.8% during the 3rd quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC now owns 4,612 shares of the company’s stock worth $400,000 after buying an additional 125 shares during the period. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. now owns 11,473 shares of the company’s stock worth $923,000 after buying an additional 127 shares during the period. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 30.2% during the 4th quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 547 shares of the company’s stock worth $43,000 after buying an additional 127 shares during the period. Finally, Northwest Financial Advisors boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors now owns 6,945 shares of the company’s stock worth $556,000 after buying an additional 139 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

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.