Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Invests $1.21 Million in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board acquired a new position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund acquired 13,966 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,211,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of TTC. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Toro by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 10,565,128 shares of the company’s stock worth $968,083,000 after buying an additional 73,719 shares during the last quarter. Covestor Ltd lifted its stake in Toro by 522.6% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 716 shares of the company’s stock valued at $66,000 after acquiring an additional 601 shares during the period. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd lifted its stake in Toro by 114.3% during the 1st quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd now owns 1,500 shares of the company’s stock valued at $137,000 after acquiring an additional 800 shares during the period. Bessemer Group Inc. lifted its stake in Toro by 3.9% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 9,645 shares of the company’s stock valued at $883,000 after acquiring an additional 359 shares during the period. Finally, CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co lifted its stake in Toro by 3.2% during the 1st quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co now owns 78,010 shares of the company’s stock valued at $7,145,000 after acquiring an additional 2,434 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Stock Performance

TTC opened at $81.88 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.94 and a quick ratio of 0.85. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $83.81 and a 200 day moving average price of $88.04. The stock has a market cap of $8.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.49 and a beta of 0.69. The Toro Company has a 1 year low of $77.15 and a 1 year high of $102.00.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 5th. The company reported $1.18 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.23 by ($0.05). The company had revenue of $1.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.26 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 25.94% and a net margin of 8.89%. The business’s revenue was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.95 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.16 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th were issued a dividend of $0.36 per share. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 30th. Toro’s payout ratio is 37.80%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TTC has been the subject of several research reports. Northland Securities restated a “market perform” rating and set a $100.00 price objective on shares of Toro in a research note on Friday, September 6th. DA Davidson decreased their target price on shares of Toro from $103.00 to $88.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on shares of Toro from $102.00 to $92.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 6th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Toro presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $93.33.

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.