Toro (NYSE:TTC) Downgraded to Hold Rating by StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of Toro (NYSE:TTC) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report released on Tuesday morning.

TTC has been the subject of several other research reports. Raymond James decreased their price objective on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price target on Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 7th. DA Davidson decreased their price target on Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Northland Capmk upgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Northland Securities upgraded 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. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $89.75.

Toro Trading Down 0.6 %

NYSE TTC opened at $72.80 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $7.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.16 and a beta of 0.70. Toro has a 52 week low of $71.75 and a 52 week high of $100.93. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $80.12 and a 200-day moving average price of $82.65. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The firm 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%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Toro will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be paid a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.09%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.87%.

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of TTC. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of Toro by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 15,298 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,225,000 after buying an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC lifted its position in shares of Toro by 2.8% during the 3rd quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC now owns 4,612 shares of the company’s stock valued at $400,000 after buying an additional 125 shares during the last quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. lifted its position in shares of Toro by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. now owns 11,473 shares of the company’s stock valued at $923,000 after buying an additional 127 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Toro by 30.2% during the 4th quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 547 shares of the company’s stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 127 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northwest Financial Advisors lifted its position in shares of Toro by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors now owns 6,945 shares of the company’s stock valued at $556,000 after buying an additional 139 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

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.