Toro Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:TTC)

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Investors acquired 1,176 put options on the company. This is an increase of 1,709% compared to the average volume of 65 put options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Select Equity Group L.P. increased its stake in shares of Toro by 1.6% in the second quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 5,519,407 shares of the company’s stock worth $516,120,000 after buying an additional 88,536 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Toro by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,959,875 shares of the company’s stock worth $169,639,000 after acquiring an additional 29,105 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in Toro by 13.9% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 901,346 shares of the company’s stock worth $84,279,000 after acquiring an additional 110,330 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in Toro by 11.7% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 618,986 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,685,000 after acquiring an additional 64,660 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Point72 Asset Management L.P. grew its holdings in Toro by 682.7% in the 2nd quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 482,139 shares of the company’s stock worth $45,085,000 after acquiring an additional 420,539 shares during the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Raymond James lowered their target price on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note 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, Toro has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $93.75.

Toro Trading Up 2.8 %

Shares of TTC opened at $86.51 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $8.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.57 and a beta of 0.72. Toro has a 1-year low of $76.95 and a 1-year high of $100.93. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $83.18 and its 200 day simple moving average is $86.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

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

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were paid a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date 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 1.76%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 37.91%.

Toro declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to buyback 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s board 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.