Toro Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders acquired 1,176 put options on the company. This is an increase of 1,709% compared to the average daily volume of 65 put options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of TTC. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in 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 purchasing an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC lifted its position in Toro by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC now owns 4,612 shares of the company’s stock valued at $400,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares during the last quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. lifted its position in Toro by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. now owns 11,473 shares of the company’s stock valued at $923,000 after purchasing an additional 127 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC lifted its position in Toro by 30.2% in the 4th quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 547 shares of the company’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 127 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northwest Financial Advisors lifted its position in Toro by 2.0% in the 4th quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors now owns 6,945 shares of the company’s stock valued at $556,000 after purchasing an additional 139 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TTC has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on shares of Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 7th. Northland Securities raised shares of Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, February 24th. DA Davidson lowered their price target on shares of Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Raymond James decreased their price objective on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday. 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’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Toro currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $89.75.

Toro Price Performance

Shares of TTC stock opened at $72.17 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $7.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.00 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74. Toro has a 1-year low of $71.50 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $79.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $82.57.

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, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The company 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 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Toro will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program 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 programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Toro Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be given a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 31st. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.11%. Toro’s payout ratio is currently 38.87%.

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.