Toro (NYSE:TTC) Trading 4.2% Higher – Here’s What Happened

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)’s share price traded up 4.2% during trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $76.33 and last traded at $76.32. 293,436 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 67% from the average session volume of 897,927 shares. The stock had previously closed at $73.25.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. DA Davidson cut their price objective on Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. StockNews.com cut Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 7th. Northland Capmk upgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Northland Securities upgraded Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday, February 24th. Finally, 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 research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Toro presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $89.75.

Toro Trading Down 2.4 %

The company has a 50 day moving average of $80.79 and a 200-day moving average of $83.30. 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 stock has a market cap of $7.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.80 and a beta of 0.70.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. Toro’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.71 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 0.8% in 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 grew its stake in 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 last quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. grew its stake in 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 last quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC grew its stake in 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 last quarter. Finally, Northwest Financial Advisors grew its stake in 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 last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.