Fifth Third Bancorp Acquires 3,444 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Fifth Third Bancorp grew its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC - Free Report) by 270.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,717 shares of the company's stock after acquiring an additional 3,444 shares during the quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp's holdings in Toro were worth $378,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. boosted its stake in Toro by 24.5% in the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company's stock worth $12,527,000 after buying an additional 28,453 shares in the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. grew its holdings 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 during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates raised its position in Toro by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company's stock worth $24,172,000 after purchasing an additional 14,950 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in Toro in the third quarter worth $1,261,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company's stock.

Toro Trading Down 3.2 %

TTC traded down $2.64 during trading on Monday, hitting $80.63. 1,090,140 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 764,709. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $83.63 and a 200 day moving average of $85.73. The Toro Company has a 12-month low of $76.95 and a 12-month high of $100.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.11 and a beta of 0.72. 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 (NYSE:TTC - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations 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% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.71 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

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 paid a $0.38 dividend. This is a positive change from Toro's previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.89%. Toro's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.91%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Raymond James decreased their price objective on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 20th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price 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.