HM Payson & Co. Sells 259 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

HM Payson & Co. trimmed its stake in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 18.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm 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 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Toro by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,959,875 shares of the company’s stock valued at $169,639,000 after acquiring an additional 29,105 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in shares of Toro by 5.3% during the 4th 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 last quarter. US Bancorp DE lifted its position in shares of Toro by 3.2% during the 4th quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 799,385 shares of the company’s stock worth $64,031,000 after buying an additional 24,596 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in shares of Toro by 11.7% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 618,986 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,685,000 after buying an additional 64,660 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted 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 buying an additional 498,332 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

Toro Price Performance

Shares of TTC opened at $73.44 on Monday. The Toro Company has a 12-month low of $72.18 and a 12-month high of $100.93. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $80.94 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $83.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The stock has a market cap of $7.39 billion, a PE ratio of 18.31 and a beta of 0.70.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued 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. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.71 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

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

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically 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.