KBC Group NV Reduces Holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

KBC Group NV lowered its stake in shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 7,854 shares of the company’s stock after selling 133 shares during the quarter. KBC Group NV’s holdings in Toro were worth $681,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its holdings in shares of Toro by 350.9% in the first quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 1,258 shares of the company’s stock worth $115,000 after buying an additional 979 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Toro by 0.7% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 10,565,128 shares of the company’s stock worth $968,083,000 after acquiring an additional 73,719 shares during the period. Covestor Ltd grew its stake in Toro by 522.6% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 716 shares of the company’s stock valued at $66,000 after purchasing an additional 601 shares during the last quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd grew its stake in Toro by 114.3% during the 1st quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd now owns 1,500 shares of the company’s stock valued at $137,000 after purchasing an additional 800 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bessemer Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 3.9% in the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 9,645 shares of the company’s stock valued at $883,000 after purchasing an additional 359 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently commented on TTC. StockNews.com upgraded Toro from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 9th. DA Davidson cut their price objective on shares of Toro from $103.00 to $88.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Northland Securities restated a “market perform” rating and set a $100.00 target price on shares of Toro in a research report on Friday, September 6th. Finally, Robert W. Baird cut their price target on Toro from $102.00 to $92.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 6th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.33.

Toro Stock Performance

TTC opened at $81.82 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $83.87 and a 200 day moving average price of $88.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.94 and a quick ratio of 0.85. The Toro Company has a 1 year low of $77.15 and a 1 year high of $102.00. The stock has a market cap of $8.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.48 and a beta of 0.69.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 8.89% and a return on equity of 25.94%. The business had revenue of $1.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.95 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that The Toro Company will post 4.16 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th were paid a dividend of $0.36 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 30th. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.76%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.80%.

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.