New York State Teachers Retirement System Has $7.75 Million Stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

New York State Teachers Retirement System decreased its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 2.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 96,803 shares of the company’s stock after selling 2,600 shares during the quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System owned 0.10% of Toro worth $7,754,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Asset Planning Inc acquired a new position in Toro during the fourth quarter worth about $31,000. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. raised its stake in Toro by 850.0% during the third quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after acquiring an additional 765 shares in the last quarter. CWM LLC raised its stake in Toro by 15.5% during the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,000 after acquiring an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. raised its stake in Toro by 534.8% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after acquiring an additional 1,123 shares in the last quarter. Finally, PrairieView Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Toro by 14.7% in the fourth quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC now owns 1,547 shares of the company’s stock valued at $123,000 after buying an additional 198 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Raymond James lowered their price objective on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

Toro stock opened at $82.88 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $82.03 and a 200-day moving average of $84.44. The Toro Company has a 1 year low of $76.95 and a 1 year high of $100.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The company has a market capitalization of $8.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.67 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during 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 company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.71 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a dividend of $0.38 per share. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.83%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to buyback 4,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

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.