Simon Quick Advisors LLC Sells 454 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Simon Quick Advisors LLC lessened its stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 8.4% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,946 shares of the company’s stock after selling 454 shares during the period. Simon Quick Advisors LLC’s holdings in Toro were worth $396,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its holdings in Toro by 2.1% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 25,759 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,409,000 after acquiring an additional 522 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of Toro by 13.9% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 901,346 shares of the company’s stock worth $84,279,000 after purchasing an additional 110,330 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Toro in the 2nd quarter valued at $608,000. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired a new stake in shares of Toro during the second quarter worth $159,000. Finally, AE Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in Toro by 12.6% during the second quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC now owns 2,493 shares of the company’s stock worth $233,000 after buying an additional 279 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Raymond James cut their price target on shares of 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.75.

Toro Trading Up 2.8 %

NYSE:TTC opened at $86.51 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $83.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $86.13. The Toro Company has a 12 month low of $76.95 and a 12 month high of $100.93. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.57 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 EPS. Analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro declared that its board has authorized a share 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 typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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 given a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.76%. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.91%.

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.