Boston Trust Walden Corp Acquires 11,549 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Boston Trust Walden Corp lifted its position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC - Free Report) by 3.6% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 334,132 shares of the company's stock after buying an additional 11,549 shares during the quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp owned about 0.33% of Toro worth $26,764,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of TTC. Nuance Investments LLC bought a new stake in Toro during the third quarter valued at about $29,146,000. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 90,538 shares during the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its stake in Toro by 945.5% during the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 82,111 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,577,000 after purchasing an additional 74,257 shares during the period. Benjamin Edwards Inc. grew its holdings in Toro by 6,995.4% in the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,418,000 after buying an additional 72,962 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. increased its position in Toro by 31.5% in 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 period. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James lowered their price objective on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note 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, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

Toro stock traded down $0.46 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $80.17. The stock had a trading volume of 589,789 shares, compared to its average volume of 765,072. The Toro Company has a fifty-two week low of $76.95 and a fifty-two week high of $100.93. The company has a market cap of $8.11 billion, a PE ratio of 19.99 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a 50-day moving average of $83.15 and a two-hundred day moving average of $85.43. 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 - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. Toro's revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to repurchase 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often an indication that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

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 paid a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.90%. This is a boost from Toro's previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro's payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

Toro 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.