The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Shares Sold by Tobam

Tobam decreased its position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC - Free Report) by 24.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 47,132 shares of the company's stock after selling 15,365 shares during the quarter. Tobam's holdings in Toro were worth $3,775,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of TTC. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 28,453 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at about $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 worth $6,418,000 after purchasing an additional 72,962 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates increased its position in shares of Toro by 5.7% in the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company's stock worth $24,172,000 after acquiring an additional 14,950 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,261,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company's stock.

Toro Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of NYSE:TTC traded up $0.22 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $80.29. The company's stock had a trading volume of 327,297 shares, compared to its average volume of 749,023. 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 debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81. The company has a market capitalization of $8.08 billion, a PE ratio of 20.02 and a beta of 0.72. The stock's 50-day moving average price is $83.01 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $85.17.

Toro (NYSE:TTC - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts' consensus estimates of $0.95. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The firm's revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.71 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current 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 Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. This is a positive change from Toro's previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.89%. Toro's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.91%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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