The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Stock Holdings Cut by Retirement Systems of Alabama

Retirement Systems of Alabama lessened its position in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC - Free Report) by 5.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 131,962 shares of the company's stock after selling 8,200 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabama owned about 0.13% of Toro worth $10,570,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of TTC. Nuance Investments LLC bought a new position in Toro during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $29,146,000. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Toro by 71.2% during the 3rd quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 217,739 shares of the company's stock worth $18,885,000 after buying an additional 90,538 shares during the last quarter. KBC Group NV lifted its holdings in Toro by 945.5% during the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 82,111 shares of the company's stock worth $6,577,000 after buying an additional 74,257 shares during the last quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its holdings in Toro by 6,995.4% during the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company's stock worth $6,418,000 after buying an additional 72,962 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. lifted its holdings in Toro by 31.5% during the 3rd quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 298,150 shares of the company's stock worth $25,859,000 after buying an additional 71,431 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company's stock.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of Toro stock traded down $0.91 on Wednesday, reaching $79.27. 1,041,569 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 769,281. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81. The company's 50-day moving average is $82.62 and its two-hundred day moving average is $84.90. The firm has a market cap of $7.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.77 and a beta of 0.72. The Toro Company has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93.

Toro (NYSE:TTC - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts' consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.71 EPS. The business's quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. This is a boost from Toro's previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. Toro's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase 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 often an indication that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James dropped 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. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Toro currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $93.75.

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.