The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Receives $93.75 Average PT from Brokerages

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the four analysts that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $93.75.

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toro

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Toro by 24.5% in the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after acquiring an additional 28,453 shares in the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter worth about $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% during the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,418,000 after purchasing an additional 72,962 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates increased its position in shares of Toro by 5.7% during the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock valued at $24,172,000 after buying an additional 14,950 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. bought a new position in Toro in the third quarter worth about $1,261,000. 87.95% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Toro Price Performance

TTC opened at $82.55 on Tuesday. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $8.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.59 and a beta of 0.72. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $83.24 and a 200-day moving average price of $86.33. Toro has a 12-month low of $76.95 and a 12-month high of $100.93.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. Toro’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Toro will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a dividend of $0.38 per share. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.84%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization allows the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is 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.