Janney Montgomery Scott LLC Trims Stock Holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Janney Montgomery Scott LLC reduced its position in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 9,186 shares of the company’s stock after selling 209 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC’s holdings in Toro were worth $797,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of TTC. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings 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 valued at $968,083,000 after acquiring an additional 73,719 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in Toro by 25.0% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 6,653,109 shares of the company’s stock worth $609,626,000 after acquiring an additional 1,332,248 shares during the period. Select Equity Group L.P. lifted its position in Toro by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 5,519,407 shares of the company’s stock worth $516,120,000 after acquiring an additional 88,536 shares during the period. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Toro by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 4,766,046 shares of the company’s stock worth $445,673,000 after acquiring an additional 65,800 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 13.9% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 901,346 shares of the company’s stock worth $84,279,000 after buying an additional 110,330 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently commented on TTC shares. StockNews.com upgraded 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 set a $100.00 target price on shares of Toro in a report on Friday, September 6th. DA Davidson reduced their target price on Toro from $103.00 to $88.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Toro from $102.00 to $92.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 6th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.33.

Toro Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of Toro stock opened at $80.96 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.25 and a beta of 0.69. The Toro Company has a fifty-two week low of $77.15 and a fifty-two week high of $102.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 1.94. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $83.87 and a 200 day moving average of $88.13.

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

Toro Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th were given a dividend of $0.36 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 30th. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.78%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.80%.

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.