Toro Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Toro news, VP Edric C. Funk sold 615 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.57, for a total value of $55,085.55. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 1,049 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $93,958.93. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other Toro news, VP Edric C. Funk sold 615 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.57, for a total value of $55,085.55. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 1,049 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $93,958.93. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director Gary Lee Ellis sold 5,192 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.75, for a total value of $460,790.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 33,051 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,933,276.25. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 1.62% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Toro

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of TTC. CWM LLC grew its stake in shares of Toro by 75.3% in the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,036 shares of the company’s stock valued at $86,000 after purchasing an additional 445 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its position in Toro by 15.2% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 10,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $880,000 after acquiring an additional 1,397 shares during the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC bought a new stake in Toro during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $433,000. Handelsbanken Fonder AB grew its position in Toro by 7.6% during the 3rd quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 19,839 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,649,000 after acquiring an additional 1,400 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Simplicity Solutions LLC grew its position in Toro by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Simplicity Solutions LLC now owns 7,053 shares of the company’s stock worth $586,000 after acquiring an additional 243 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TTC has been the subject of several research analyst reports. DA Davidson boosted their price objective on Toro from $93.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 14th. TheStreet raised Toro from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Toro from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Toro presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $105.60.

Toro Trading Down 0.4 %

Toro stock opened at $87.21 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $88.96 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $89.01. The company has a quick ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 2.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76. The stock has a market cap of $9.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.83 and a beta of 0.72. Toro has a 12 month low of $78.35 and a 12 month high of $108.50.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 7th. The company reported $0.64 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.02). Toro had a net margin of 6.53% and a return on equity of 26.66%. The firm had revenue of $1 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.98 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 12.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Toro will post 4.3 EPS for the current year.

Toro Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 1st were paid a $0.36 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 28th. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 52.55%.

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.