Texas Permanent School Fund Corp Increases Stake in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Texas Permanent School Fund Corp increased its holdings in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 1.9% during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 91,368 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 1,661 shares during the period. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp’s holdings in Toro were worth $8,372,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Evoke Wealth LLC bought a new stake in Toro during the fourth quarter worth about $2,479,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Toro by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 10,491,409 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,007,070,000 after acquiring an additional 103,300 shares in the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc boosted its stake in Toro by 334.2% during the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 818,260 shares of the company’s stock worth $78,545,000 after acquiring an additional 629,820 shares in the last quarter. Cim LLC bought a new stake in Toro during the fourth quarter worth about $12,882,000. Finally, Bank of Nova Scotia boosted its stake in Toro by 5,261.3% during the fourth quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 132,209 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,690,000 after acquiring an additional 129,743 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of TTC traded up $2.92 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $91.17. 762,868 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 898,365. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 1.93. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $89.28 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $90.49. The Toro Company has a 1 year low of $77.15 and a 1 year high of $106.68. The stock has a market cap of $9.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.04 and a beta of 0.69.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 6th. The company reported $1.40 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.11. Toro had a net margin of 6.00% and a return on equity of 25.04%. The firm had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.34 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.58 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up .7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 11th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, June 18th were issued a dividend of $0.36 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, June 18th. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.58%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 56.92%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on TTC. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Toro from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, June 7th. DA Davidson upped their target price on shares of Toro from $93.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $98.75.

Insider Buying and Selling at Toro

In other news, CEO Richard M. Olson sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, June 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $95.19, for a total value of $1,903,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 17,913 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,705,138.47. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 1.62% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.