Toro Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) saw some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Traders acquired 1,176 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 1,709% compared to the typical volume of 65 put options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James reduced their price target on shares of 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 stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Toro has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $93.75.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toro

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in TTC. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 2.1% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 25,759 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,409,000 after buying an additional 522 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 13.9% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 901,346 shares of the company’s stock worth $84,279,000 after buying an additional 110,330 shares in the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the second quarter worth about $608,000. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 21.2% in the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 9,641 shares of the company’s stock worth $900,000 after buying an additional 1,689 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Intech Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 39.5% in the second quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 18,048 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,688,000 after buying an additional 5,109 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Price Performance

TTC opened at $86.51 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $8.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.57 and a beta of 0.72. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $83.18 and a 200 day moving average of $86.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81. Toro has a fifty-two week low of $76.95 and a fifty-two week high of $100.93.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.71 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a dividend of $0.38 per share. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.76%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.91%.

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to buyback 4,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are 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.