D.A. Davidson & CO. Raises Stock Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

D.A. Davidson & CO. raised its position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 22.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 11,552 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,114 shares during the quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO.’s holdings in Toro were worth $925,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its holdings in Toro by 996,664.0% in the 4th quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 498,382 shares of the company’s stock valued at $39,410,000 after buying an additional 498,332 shares during the period. Nuance Investments LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Toro during the third quarter valued at about $29,146,000. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Toro by 71.2% in the 3rd 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 during the period. KBC Group NV raised its stake in shares of Toro by 945.5% in the 4th 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 during the period. Finally, Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% in the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,418,000 after acquiring an additional 72,962 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Raymond James cut their target price on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Toro currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

NYSE TTC opened at $79.95 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $8.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.94 and a beta of 0.72. 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 stock has a 50-day moving average of $81.74 and a two-hundred day moving average of $84.27.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.90%. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has authorized a share buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

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.