Amundi Raises Stock Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Amundi boosted its holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 30.3% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,121,116 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 260,746 shares during the period. Amundi owned 1.11% of Toro worth $89,701,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of TTC. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 24.5% during the 3rd quarter. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. now owns 144,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,527,000 after purchasing an additional 28,453 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC bought a new position in shares of Toro during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. boosted 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 purchasing an additional 72,962 shares during the last quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Toro during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,261,000. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 200,456 shares of the company’s stock valued at $17,386,000 after purchasing an additional 9,998 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have commented on TTC. DA Davidson dropped their price objective on shares of Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, March 7th. Northland Securities raised shares of Toro from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, February 24th. Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on shares of Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 7th. Finally, Northland Capmk raised shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $89.75.

Toro Stock Performance

Toro stock opened at $75.41 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The Toro Company has a 1-year low of $72.18 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.80 and a beta of 0.70. The company’s 50-day moving average is $80.79 and its 200 day moving average is $83.30.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

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