The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.38

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 10th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd will be given a dividend of 0.38 per share on Monday, January 13th. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.71%. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36.

Toro has raised its dividend by an average of 10.9% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 20 consecutive years. Toro has a payout ratio of 31.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Toro to earn $4.59 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.44 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 31.4%.

Toro Stock Performance

NYSE TTC traded up $1.35 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $88.81. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 33,059 shares, compared to its average volume of 845,813. The company has a quick ratio of 0.85, a current ratio of 1.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $84.05 and a 200 day moving average price of $87.86. The firm has a market cap of $9.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.95 and a beta of 0.70. Toro has a 52 week low of $77.15 and a 52 week high of $102.00.

Toro declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Toro Company 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.