Willis Investment Counsel Has $364,000 Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Willis Investment Counsel increased its position in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 10.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,548 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 445 shares during the quarter. Willis Investment Counsel’s holdings in Toro were worth $364,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Speece Thorson Capital Group Inc. grew 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 worth $12,527,000 after purchasing an additional 28,453 shares in the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Toro during the third quarter valued at approximately $1,248,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. grew its stake in shares of Toro by 6,995.4% in 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 period. Raymond James & Associates lifted its position in shares of Toro by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 278,700 shares of the company’s stock worth $24,172,000 after buying an additional 14,950 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Toro in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,261,000. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Raymond James dropped their price objective on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $93.75.

Toro Stock Down 1.5 %

NYSE TTC opened at $83.30 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $83.63 and its 200 day simple moving average is $85.73. The Toro Company has a one year low of $76.95 and a one year high of $100.93. The firm has a market cap of $8.43 billion, a PE ratio of 20.77 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.71 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were paid a dividend of $0.38 per share. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.82%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is 37.91%.

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