Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Put Options on Toro (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Traders acquired 1,176 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 1,709% compared to the average volume of 65 put options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toro

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. UMB Bank n.a. grew its position in shares of Toro by 112.1% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 630 shares of the company’s stock valued at $55,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 850.0% during the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after purchasing an additional 765 shares during the period. CWM LLC boosted its stake in Toro by 15.5% in the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in shares of Toro by 534.8% in the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after acquiring an additional 1,123 shares during the last quarter. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC raised its stake in Toro by 13.5% during the third quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 1,540 shares of the company’s stock worth $134,000 after purchasing an additional 183 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Toro Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE TTC opened at $79.23 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.02 billion, a PE ratio of 20.80 and a beta of 0.72. Toro has a twelve month low of $77.15 and a twelve month high of $100.93. The company has a current ratio of 1.94, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $83.53 and a 200-day simple moving average of $86.84.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. Toro had a net margin of 8.89% and a return on equity of 25.94%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.71 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Toro will post 4.16 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd will be issued a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.92%. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James lowered their target price on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 20th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.75.

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.