New York State Common Retirement Fund Has $14.27 Million Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

New York State Common Retirement Fund grew its stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 26.3% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 178,158 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 37,137 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned 0.18% of Toro worth $14,270,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 15,298 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,225,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC boosted its position in Toro by 2.8% during the third quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC now owns 4,612 shares of the company’s stock valued at $400,000 after acquiring an additional 125 shares during the last quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors grew its holdings in Toro by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors now owns 6,945 shares of the company’s stock worth $556,000 after acquiring an additional 139 shares during the period. CWM LLC raised its position in shares of Toro by 15.5% in the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,000 after acquiring an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Empowered Funds LLC lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 7.1% in the 3rd quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 2,366 shares of the company’s stock valued at $205,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Raymond James cut their price target on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 20th. Three equities research 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.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Price Performance

Toro stock opened at $79.95 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $81.74 and its 200 day simple moving average is $84.27. 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 $8.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.94 and a beta of 0.72.

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

Toro Increases Dividend

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

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

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.