Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA Purchases Shares of 31,083 The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA acquired a new stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 31,083 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,519,000.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in TTC. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Toro by 24.5% during the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company's stock valued at $12,527,000 after buying an additional 28,453 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC bought a new position in Toro in the third quarter worth about $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% during the third quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,418,000 after acquiring an additional 72,962 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates increased its holdings 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 buying an additional 14,950 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Toro during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,261,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company's stock.

Toro Stock Down 1.7 %

Shares of TTC stock traded down $1.45 on Friday, reaching $83.12. 543,538 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 718,048. The business's 50 day moving average price is $83.67 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $85.99. 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 Toro Company has a 12-month low of $76.95 and a 12-month high of $100.93. The company has a market capitalization of $8.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.73 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC - Get Free Report) last announced 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 analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The business's quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.71 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro declared that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the company's leadership believes its shares are 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 an increase 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.83%. Toro's dividend payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Raymond James reduced their price target 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 given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently 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.