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 is an increase of 1,709% compared to the average volume of 65 put options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James cut their price objective 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 equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of TTC stock opened at $79.23 on Friday. The company’s 50-day moving average is $83.50 and its 200 day moving average is $86.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 1.94. The company has a market capitalization of $8.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.80 and a beta of 0.72. Toro has a one year low of $77.15 and a one year 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Toro had a net margin of 8.89% and a return on equity of 25.94%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.71 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Toro will post 4.16 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd will be issued a dividend of $0.38 per share. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of Toro

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 112.1% in the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 630 shares of the company’s stock worth $55,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares during the period. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 850.0% in the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after purchasing an additional 765 shares during the period. CWM LLC lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 15.5% in the 3rd 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. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 534.8% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after purchasing an additional 1,123 shares during the period. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 13.5% in the 3rd quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 1,540 shares of the company’s stock worth $134,000 after purchasing an additional 183 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

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.