The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Shares Bought by Entropy Technologies LP

Entropy Technologies LP increased its stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 134.6% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 33,312 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 19,112 shares during the period. Entropy Technologies LP’s holdings in Toro were worth $2,668,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its stake in Toro by 112.1% in the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 630 shares of the company’s stock worth $55,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares in the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. boosted its stake in Toro by 850.0% in the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after purchasing an additional 765 shares in the last quarter. CWM LLC boosted its stake in Toro by 15.5% in the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its stake in Toro by 534.8% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after purchasing an additional 1,123 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Bay Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Toro by 87.2% in the 4th quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 1,657 shares of the company’s stock worth $133,000 after purchasing an additional 772 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James decreased their price objective on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Toro currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

TTC opened at $80.17 on Friday. 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 fifty day moving average price of $83.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $85.31. The Toro Company has a 1 year low of $76.95 and a 1 year high of $100.93. The stock has a market cap of $8.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.99 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its 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. 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 analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.71 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors 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. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program 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 programs are often an indication that the company’s board 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.