New York State Teachers Retirement System Has $7.75 Million Holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

New York State Teachers Retirement System trimmed its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 2.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 96,803 shares of the company’s stock after selling 2,600 shares during the quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System’s holdings in Toro were worth $7,754,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of TTC. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 996,664.0% during the 4th quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 498,382 shares of the company’s stock worth $39,410,000 after buying an additional 498,332 shares in the last quarter. Nuance Investments LLC bought a new position in shares of Toro during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $29,146,000. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 71.2% during the 3rd quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 217,739 shares of the company’s stock worth $18,885,000 after buying an additional 90,538 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 945.5% in the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 82,111 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,577,000 after purchasing an additional 74,257 shares in the last quarter. 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 purchasing an additional 72,962 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Toro Price Performance

Shares of TTC opened at $82.88 on Thursday. The Toro Company has a 12-month low of $76.95 and a 12-month high of $100.93. The business’s fifty day moving average is $82.03 and its 200 day moving average is $84.44. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The stock has a market cap of $8.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.67 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued 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. 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 analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.71 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are 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 paid a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.83%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 37.91%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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 report on Friday, December 20th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro 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.