Toro Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders acquired 1,176 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 1,709% compared to the typical daily volume of 65 put options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Toro

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 45.5% in the fourth quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 7,031,295 shares of the company’s stock valued at $563,207,000 after acquiring an additional 2,199,920 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 1.5% in the third 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 boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 5.3% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,187,550 shares of the company’s stock valued at $95,123,000 after acquiring an additional 60,068 shares during the period. Amundi boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 30.3% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 1,121,116 shares of the company’s stock valued at $89,701,000 after acquiring an additional 260,746 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 17.5% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,100,503 shares of the company’s stock valued at $88,152,000 after acquiring an additional 164,069 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of TTC opened at $81.38 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $81.91 and a 200 day moving average price of $84.42. 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 company has a market capitalization of $8.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.29 and a beta of 0.72. Toro has a 52-week low of $76.95 and a 52-week high of $100.93.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its quarterly 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 firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.87%. This is an increase 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 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.