Amundi Raises Stock Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Amundi lifted its stake in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 30.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 1,121,116 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 260,746 shares during the quarter. Amundi’s holdings in Toro were worth $89,701,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Atria Investments Inc boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 3.2% during the third quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 22,736 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,972,000 after purchasing an additional 710 shares in the last quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 11.3% during the third quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 7,776 shares of the company’s stock valued at $674,000 after purchasing an additional 789 shares in the last quarter. Entropy Technologies LP boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 11.2% during the third quarter. Entropy Technologies LP now owns 14,200 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,232,000 after purchasing an additional 1,427 shares in the last quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP bought a new position in shares of Toro during the third quarter valued at approximately $1,185,000. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 5.2% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 200,456 shares of the company’s stock valued at $17,386,000 after purchasing an additional 9,998 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, March 7th. Northland Securities upgraded shares of Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, February 24th. DA Davidson lowered their target price on shares of Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Raymond James lowered their target price 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. Finally, Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on shares of Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 7th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $89.75.

Toro Price Performance

Shares of TTC opened at $75.41 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $7.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.80 and a beta of 0.70. The Toro Company has a twelve month low of $72.18 and a twelve month high of $100.93. 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 50 day moving average of $80.79 and a two-hundred day moving average of $83.30.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The business 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%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro declared that its board has initiated a share buyback 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 usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is 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.