The Toro Company Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.36 (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, September 17th, NASDAQ reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 30th will be given a dividend of 0.36 per share on Friday, October 11th. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 30th.

Toro has raised its dividend by an average of 10.9% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Toro has a payout ratio of 31.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Toro to earn $4.59 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.44 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 31.4%.

Toro Stock Down 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE:TTC traded down $0.98 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $85.38. The stock had a trading volume of 808,657 shares, compared to its average volume of 887,910. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $90.70 and its 200 day simple moving average is $89.48. The company has a current ratio of 1.94, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. Toro has a one year low of $77.15 and a one year high of $102.00. The company has a market capitalization of $8.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.13 and a beta of 0.69.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 5th. The company reported $1.18 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.23 by ($0.05). The firm had revenue of $1.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.26 billion. Toro had a net margin of 8.89% and a return on equity of 25.94%. The company’s revenue was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.95 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Toro will post 4.16 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently issued reports on TTC shares. Northland Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and set a $100.00 target price on shares of Toro in a research report on Friday, September 6th. StockNews.com raised shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 9th. DA Davidson dropped their target price on shares of Toro from $103.00 to $88.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Robert W. Baird cut their price target on shares of Toro from $102.00 to $92.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, September 6th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.33.

Insider Activity

In other Toro news, CEO Richard M. Olson sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $95.19, for a total transaction of $1,903,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 17,913 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,705,138.47. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 1.62% of the company’s stock.

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.