The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) has received a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the five ratings firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, two have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $89.75.

Several equities analysts have commented on TTC shares. Northland Securities raised shares of Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Raymond James lowered their target price on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on shares of Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 7th. DA Davidson reduced their price objective on shares of Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 7th.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toro

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 45.5% in the fourth quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 7,031,295 shares of the company’s stock worth $563,207,000 after buying an additional 2,199,920 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 1.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,959,875 shares of the company’s stock worth $169,639,000 after buying an additional 29,105 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 5.3% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,187,550 shares of the company’s stock worth $95,123,000 after buying an additional 60,068 shares during the period. Amundi boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 30.3% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 1,121,116 shares of the company’s stock worth $89,701,000 after buying an additional 260,746 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 17.5% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,100,503 shares of the company’s stock worth $88,152,000 after buying an additional 164,069 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Stock Down 2.4 %

TTC stock opened at $75.41 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. Toro has a fifty-two week low of $72.18 and a fifty-two week high of $100.93. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $80.79 and its 200 day simple moving average is $83.30. The stock has a market cap of $7.59 billion, a PE ratio of 18.80 and a beta of 0.70.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. Toro’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.71 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan 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 plans are often an indication that the company’s management 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.