Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Sells 300 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System cut its holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 1.0% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 28,500 shares of the company’s stock after selling 300 shares during the period. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Toro were worth $2,283,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in TTC. CWM LLC increased its stake in shares of Toro by 15.5% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $92,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares during the period. Vontobel Holding Ltd. grew its position in Toro by 7.2% during the third quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 2,361 shares of the company’s stock worth $205,000 after buying an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. nVerses Capital LLC grew its position in Toro by 21.1% during the third quarter. nVerses Capital LLC now owns 6,900 shares of the company’s stock worth $598,000 after buying an additional 1,200 shares in the last quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC grew its position in Toro by 13.5% during the third quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 1,540 shares of the company’s stock worth $134,000 after buying an additional 183 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Claro Advisors LLC grew its position in Toro by 2.3% during the third quarter. Claro Advisors LLC now owns 7,313 shares of the company’s stock worth $634,000 after buying an additional 161 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Toro Stock Up 0.4 %

NYSE TTC opened at $80.50 on Friday. The Toro Company has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $82.38 and its two-hundred day moving average is $84.75. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The company has a market capitalization of $8.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.07 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 analysts’ consensus estimates 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 net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. Toro’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.89%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is presently 37.91%.

Toro declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to buyback 4,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Toro 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.