Toro Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:TTC)

Toro Company (The) (NYSE:TTC - Get Free Report) was the target of some unusual options trading on Wednesday. Traders acquired 1,176 put options on the stock. This is an increase of 1,709% compared to the average volume of 65 put options.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on TTC shares. DA Davidson set a $76.00 target price on shares of Toro and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Monday, June 9th. Raymond James Financial decreased their target price on shares of Toro from $95.00 to $90.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Northland Securities reiterated a "market perform" rating and set a $80.00 target price (down from $100.00) on shares of Toro in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of Toro from $84.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 3rd. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Toro from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 18th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $82.75.

Insider Activity at Toro

In other Toro news, Director Gary Lee Ellis sold 5,038 shares of Toro stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.81, for a total transaction of $356,740.78. Following the sale, the director directly owned 34,062 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,411,930.22. The trade was a 12.88% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, VP Kurt D. Svendsen sold 6,000 shares of Toro stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $70.99, for a total value of $425,940.00. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 11,646 shares in the company, valued at approximately $826,749.54. The trade was a 34.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.39% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in TTC. Keybank National Association OH boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 8.7% during the 4th quarter. Keybank National Association OH now owns 3,630 shares of the company's stock valued at $291,000 after purchasing an additional 292 shares during the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 12.2% during the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 9,817 shares of the company's stock valued at $786,000 after purchasing an additional 1,070 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of Toro during the 4th quarter valued at about $36,561,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 4.4% during the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 20,359 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,631,000 after purchasing an additional 867 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amundi boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 30.3% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 1,121,116 shares of the company's stock valued at $89,701,000 after purchasing an additional 260,746 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.95% of the company's stock.

Toro Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:TTC traded down $0.85 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $75.09. The company had a trading volume of 662,797 shares, compared to its average volume of 925,857. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The company has a market cap of $7.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.25 and a beta of 0.81. Toro has a 12-month low of $62.34 and a 12-month high of $100.93. The company has a fifty day moving average of $73.01 and a two-hundred day moving average of $74.97.

Toro (NYSE:TTC - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, June 5th. The company reported $1.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.40 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $1.32 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.35 billion. Toro had a net margin of 8.77% and a return on equity of 27.99%. Toro's quarterly revenue was down 2.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.40 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Toro will post 4.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Toro Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 11th. Investors of record on Tuesday, June 17th were issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.02%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, June 17th. Toro's dividend payout ratio is currently 38.97%.

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.