PrairieView Partners LLC Grows Stock Holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

PrairieView Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 14.7% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 1,547 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 198 shares during the period. PrairieView Partners LLC’s holdings in Toro were worth $123,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 24.5% in the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after purchasing an additional 28,453 shares in the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the third quarter valued at about $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% in the third quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,418,000 after purchasing an additional 72,962 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates lifted its holdings in shares of Toro by 5.7% in the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock valued at $24,172,000 after purchasing an additional 14,950 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the third quarter valued at about $1,261,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Raymond James reduced their price target on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

NYSE:TTC opened at $79.27 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $82.62 and a 200-day simple moving average of $84.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The firm has a market cap of $7.98 billion, a PE ratio of 19.77 and a beta of 0.72. The Toro Company has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93.

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

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.92%. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s management 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.