Nordea Investment Management AB Reduces Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Nordea Investment Management AB reduced its position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 96.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 37,858 shares of the company’s stock after selling 926,741 shares during the quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB’s holdings in Toro were worth $3,054,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of TTC. UMB Bank n.a. increased its holdings in Toro by 112.1% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 630 shares of the company’s stock valued at $55,000 after buying an additional 333 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. increased its holdings in Toro by 850.0% in the third quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock valued at $74,000 after buying an additional 765 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC increased its holdings in Toro by 15.5% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,063 shares of the company’s stock valued at $92,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. increased its holdings in Toro by 534.8% in the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock valued at $125,000 after buying an additional 1,123 shares during the last quarter. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC increased its holdings in Toro by 13.5% in the third quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 1,540 shares of the company’s stock valued at $134,000 after buying an additional 183 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Raymond James decreased their target price 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 assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $93.75.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE TTC opened at $77.53 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.94, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $83.40 and a 200-day simple moving average of $86.61. The company has a market cap of $7.84 billion, a PE ratio of 20.35 and a beta of 0.72. The Toro Company has a 12-month low of $77.14 and a 12-month high of $100.93.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.95. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 25.94% and a net margin of 8.89%. The business’s revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.71 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.16 EPS for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd will be given a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 23rd. This is an increase from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.96%. Toro’s payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase program 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 programs are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.