Ipswich Investment Management Co. Inc. Trims Stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Ipswich Investment Management Co. Inc. decreased its position in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 13.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 3,175 shares of the company’s stock after selling 500 shares during the period. Ipswich Investment Management Co. Inc.’s holdings in Toro were worth $254,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Toro by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,959,875 shares of the company’s stock worth $169,639,000 after acquiring an additional 29,105 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in shares of Toro by 11.7% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 618,986 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,685,000 after buying an additional 64,660 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC grew its stake in shares of Toro by 996,664.0% in the 4th quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 498,382 shares of the company’s stock worth $39,410,000 after buying an additional 498,332 shares during the last quarter. Nuance Investments LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $29,146,000. Finally, Boston Trust Walden Corp grew its stake in shares of Toro by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp now owns 334,132 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,764,000 after buying an additional 11,549 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James cut their price target on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock 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. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

TTC stock opened at $79.95 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.05 billion, a PE ratio of 19.94 and a beta of 0.72. The Toro Company has a 12-month low of $76.95 and a 12-month high of $100.93. 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 stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $81.74 and its 200 day simple moving average is $84.34.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.71 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

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

Toro declared that its board has initiated 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 generally a sign 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.