The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Shares Sold by Rhumbline Advisers

Rhumbline Advisers reduced its stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 1.8% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 300,854 shares of the company’s stock after selling 5,537 shares during the quarter. Rhumbline Advisers’ holdings in Toro were worth $24,098,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of TTC. Asset Planning Inc acquired a new position in Toro in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. boosted its position in shares of Toro by 850.0% during the third quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after buying an additional 765 shares during the period. CWM LLC boosted its position in shares of Toro by 15.5% during the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the period. PrairieView Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of Toro by 14.7% during the fourth quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC now owns 1,547 shares of the company’s stock worth $123,000 after buying an additional 198 shares during the period. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in shares of Toro by 534.8% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after buying an additional 1,123 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE 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 company has a market cap of $8.34 billion, a PE ratio of 20.67 and a beta of 0.72. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $82.03 and a 200-day simple moving average of $84.44. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its earnings results 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 firm had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.71 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a dividend of $0.38 per share. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.83%. Toro’s payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

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.