HM Payson & Co. Has $94,000 Stock Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

HM Payson & Co. decreased its stake in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 18.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,168 shares of the company’s stock after selling 259 shares during the quarter. HM Payson & Co.’s holdings in Toro were worth $94,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in TTC. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its position 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 purchasing an additional 498,332 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Toro during the 4th quarter worth approximately $36,561,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Toro by 693.0% during the 4th quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 414,961 shares of the company’s stock worth $33,238,000 after purchasing an additional 362,634 shares during the last quarter. Nuance Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toro during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $29,146,000. Finally, Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC increased its position 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 purchasing an additional 90,538 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on TTC shares. Northland Capmk raised Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Raymond James decreased 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. StockNews.com lowered Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Finally, Northland Securities raised Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, February 24th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $91.75.

Toro Stock Performance

TTC opened at $73.44 on Monday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $80.94 and a 200 day simple moving average of $83.50. The company has a market capitalization of $7.39 billion, a PE ratio of 18.31 and a beta of 0.70. The Toro Company has a 1 year low of $72.18 and a 1 year high of $100.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The business 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 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 EPS. Research analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were paid a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.07%. Toro’s payout ratio is 38.87%.

Toro announced that its board has authorized a share 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 often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Toro Company 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.