Private Advisor Group LLC Sells 767 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Private Advisor Group LLC cut its position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 16.1% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 4,007 shares of the company’s stock after selling 767 shares during the quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC’s holdings in Toro were worth $321,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 996,664.0% during the fourth quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 498,382 shares of the company’s stock valued at $39,410,000 after acquiring an additional 498,332 shares in the last quarter. Nuance Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toro during the third quarter valued at about $29,146,000. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 71.2% during the third quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 217,739 shares of the company’s stock valued at $18,885,000 after acquiring an additional 90,538 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 945.5% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 82,111 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,577,000 after acquiring an additional 74,257 shares in the last quarter. Finally, 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. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Toro Trading Up 3.7 %

Toro stock opened at $78.23 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The Toro Company has a 12 month low of $74.51 and a 12 month high of $100.93. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $81.29 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $83.80. The firm has a market cap of $7.87 billion, a PE ratio of 19.51 and a beta of 0.72.

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

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

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.