First Horizon Advisors Inc. Acquires 285 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 54.6% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 807 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 285 shares during the quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Toro were worth $65,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Asset Planning Inc acquired a new position in shares of Toro during the fourth quarter worth $31,000. Venturi Wealth Management LLC increased its position in shares of Toro by 195.7% during the fourth quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 547 shares of the company’s stock worth $44,000 after purchasing an additional 362 shares in the last quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Toro by 14.7% during the fourth quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC now owns 1,547 shares of the company’s stock worth $123,000 after purchasing an additional 198 shares in the last quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Toro by 87.2% during the fourth 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. Finally, AdvisorNet Financial Inc increased its position in shares of Toro by 309.3% during the fourth quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 1,768 shares of the company’s stock worth $142,000 after purchasing an additional 1,336 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Toro Price Performance

Shares of TTC opened at $79.81 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.03 billion, a PE ratio of 19.90 and a beta of 0.72. 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 Toro Company has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $81.51 and its 200-day moving average price is $84.13.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion for 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 business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.71 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to repurchase 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.90%. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on TTC. Northland Capmk raised Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Northland Securities raised Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday. Finally, Raymond James dropped their price objective 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. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $93.75.

Toro Company Profile

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.