Empowered Funds LLC Purchases 33,010 Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Empowered Funds LLC raised its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 1,395.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 35,376 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 33,010 shares during the period. Empowered Funds LLC’s holdings in Toro were worth $2,834,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Toro by 24.5% in the third quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after buying an additional 28,453 shares during the period. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% in the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 74,005 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,418,000 after purchasing an additional 72,962 shares during the period. Eagle Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Toro during the third quarter worth $1,261,000. Finally, Raymond James & Associates grew its stake in shares of Toro by 5.7% during the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock worth $24,172,000 after purchasing an additional 14,950 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Raymond James reduced their target price on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 20th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Price Performance

TTC opened at $80.18 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $8.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.99 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 quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $82.62 and a 200 day simple moving average of $84.90.

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, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

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

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Toro 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.