Investors Purchase Large Volume of Put Options on Toro (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) saw unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock investors purchased 1,176 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 1,709% compared to the average daily volume of 65 put options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently issued reports on TTC shares. Northland Securities upgraded Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Raymond James lowered their price target on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Northland Capmk upgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Stock Up 3.7 %

NYSE:TTC opened at $78.23 on Thursday. Toro has a twelve month low of $74.51 and a twelve month high of $100.93. The company has a market cap of $7.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.51 and a beta of 0.72. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $81.29 and a 200-day simple moving average of $83.80. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

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

Institutional Trading of Toro

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Toro by 45.5% in the fourth quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 7,031,295 shares of the company’s stock valued at $563,207,000 after acquiring an additional 2,199,920 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Toro by 1.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,959,875 shares of the company’s stock valued at $169,639,000 after purchasing an additional 29,105 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake in Toro by 5.3% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,187,550 shares of the company’s stock valued at $95,123,000 after purchasing an additional 60,068 shares during the last quarter. Amundi grew its stake in Toro by 30.3% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 1,121,116 shares of the company’s stock valued at $89,701,000 after purchasing an additional 260,746 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in Toro by 17.5% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,100,503 shares of the company’s stock valued at $88,152,000 after purchasing an additional 164,069 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.