Toro (NYSE:TTC) Reaches New 12-Month Low – What’s Next?

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) shares hit a new 52-week low during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as $77.14 and last traded at $77.44, with a volume of 302914 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $79.25.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James lowered their price target on shares of 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 issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $7.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.35 and a beta of 0.72. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $83.40 and its 200 day simple moving average is $86.58. 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 (NYSE:TTC) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The company 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 25.94% and a net margin of 8.89%. Toro’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd will be paid a $0.38 dividend. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.96%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.91%.

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

Institutional Trading of Toro

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of TTC. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. increased its holdings in Toro by 24.5% during the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after buying an additional 28,453 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC bought a new position in Toro during the third quarter valued at $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. increased its position 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 worth $6,418,000 after acquiring an additional 72,962 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates raised its stake in Toro by 5.7% in the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock worth $24,172,000 after buying an additional 14,950 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,261,000. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.