Toro Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

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

Toro Trading Down 1.7 %

NYSE:TTC opened at $81.38 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $81.91 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $84.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.29 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81. Toro has a 1 year low of $76.95 and a 1 year high of $100.93.

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, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during 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%. Toro’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.71 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Toro will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.87%. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.91%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 24.5% during the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after acquiring an additional 28,453 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% during the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,418,000 after buying an additional 72,962 shares during the period. Eagle Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Toro during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,261,000. Finally, Raymond James & Associates raised its holdings in shares of Toro by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock valued at $24,172,000 after buying an additional 14,950 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

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.