The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Given Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the five ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, two have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $93.75.

Several research firms have weighed in on TTC. Northland Capmk raised shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Northland Securities raised Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Finally, Raymond James reduced their price target on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 20th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Toro by 24.5% during the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after buying an additional 28,453 shares during the period. PEAK6 Investments LLC purchased a new position in Toro during the 3rd quarter valued at $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. raised its holdings in Toro by 6,995.4% in the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,418,000 after purchasing an additional 72,962 shares in the last quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter worth about $1,261,000. Finally, Point72 DIFC Ltd boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 101.6% during the 3rd quarter. Point72 DIFC Ltd now owns 13,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,127,000 after purchasing an additional 6,550 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE TTC opened at $75.44 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $81.40 and its 200 day moving average is $83.90. The stock has a market cap of $7.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.81 and a beta of 0.72. Toro has a 1-year low of $74.51 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.71 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a dividend of $0.38 per share. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

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

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.