Dorsey & Whitney Trust CO LLC Trims Stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Dorsey & Whitney Trust CO LLC reduced its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 1.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 148,719 shares of the company’s stock after selling 2,897 shares during the period. Dorsey & Whitney Trust CO LLC owned about 0.15% of Toro worth $11,912,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Asset Planning Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Toro in the fourth quarter worth $31,000. Venturi Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Toro by 195.7% in the fourth quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 547 shares of the company’s stock worth $44,000 after purchasing an additional 362 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of Toro by 54.6% in the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 807 shares of the company’s stock worth $65,000 after purchasing an additional 285 shares in the last quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Toro by 14.7% in the fourth quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC now owns 1,547 shares of the company’s stock worth $123,000 after purchasing an additional 198 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Bay Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Toro by 87.2% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 1,657 shares of the company’s stock worth $133,000 after purchasing an additional 772 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TTC has been the subject of a number of research reports. Northland Securities upgraded shares of Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Robert W. Baird dropped their target price on shares of Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Northland Capmk upgraded shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. StockNews.com lowered shares of Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Raymond James dropped 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. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $91.75.

Toro Price Performance

TTC stock opened at $73.44 on Friday. The Toro Company has a 52 week low of $72.18 and a 52 week 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 $80.94 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $83.59. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.31 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate 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 net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. Toro’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.71 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced 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 2.07%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program 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. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.