Fifth Third Bancorp Grows Stock Position in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC)

Fifth Third Bancorp raised its holdings in The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) by 270.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 4,717 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 3,444 shares during the quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp’s holdings in Toro were worth $378,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of TTC. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its position in shares of Toro by 112.1% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 630 shares of the company’s stock worth $55,000 after acquiring an additional 333 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 850.0% in the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 855 shares of the company’s stock valued at $74,000 after purchasing an additional 765 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC grew its stake in shares of Toro by 15.5% during the 3rd 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 period. Blue Trust Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 534.8% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,333 shares of the company’s stock worth $125,000 after buying an additional 1,123 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Bay Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Toro by 87.2% in the 4th quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 1,657 shares of the company’s stock worth $133,000 after buying an additional 772 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.95% of the company’s stock.

Toro Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of Toro stock opened at $84.55 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $83.67 and a 200 day moving average price of $85.99. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The Toro Company has a twelve month low of $76.95 and a twelve month high of $100.93. The stock has a market cap of $8.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.08 and a beta of 0.72.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Toro had a return on equity of 27.25% and a net margin of 9.14%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.71 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that The Toro Company will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were paid a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was 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 1.80%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is 37.91%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Raymond James lowered their price target on Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $93.75.

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.