Toro (NYSE:TTC) Sets New 12-Month Low – Should You Sell?

Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) hit a new 52-week low during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as low as $74.96 and last traded at $74.99, with a volume of 39443 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $77.42.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on TTC. Northland Securities raised shares of Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Raymond James decreased their target price on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Northland Capmk raised shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Trading Down 3.2 %

The business’s 50-day moving average price is $81.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $83.90. The company has a market cap of $7.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.68 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 (NYSE:TTC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.71 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 37.91%.

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has approved 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 buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of Toro

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH acquired a new stake in shares of Toro during the 4th quarter worth about $138,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH bought a new stake in Toro in the 4th quarter valued at about $4,919,000. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in Toro by 17.6% in the 4th quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 2,822 shares of the company’s stock valued at $227,000 after purchasing an additional 422 shares during the period. Liberty Square Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in Toro in the 4th quarter valued at about $209,000. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its holdings in Toro by 5.4% in the 4th quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 13,840 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,109,000 after purchasing an additional 711 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.