Investors Buy High Volume of Toro Put Options (NYSE:TTC)

Toro Company (The) (NYSE:TTC) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Wednesday. Stock traders purchased 1,176 put options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 1,709% compared to the average volume of 65 put options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toro

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in Toro by 37.4% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 456,861 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,237,000 after buying an additional 124,373 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in shares of Toro by 4.4% during the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 258,444 shares of the company’s stock worth $20,345,000 after buying an additional 10,835 shares in the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Toro by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 125,625 shares of the company’s stock valued at $9,889,000 after acquiring an additional 410 shares during the last quarter. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 425.6% in the 4th quarter. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC now owns 64,783 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,100,000 after acquiring an additional 52,457 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Toro by 379.6% in the 4th quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. now owns 55,630 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,379,000 after acquiring an additional 44,030 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently weighed in on TTC. Robert W. Baird set a $84.00 price objective on Toro in a research report on Tuesday, December 16th. Raymond James Financial lowered shares of Toro from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Zacks Research raised shares of Toro from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 14th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $92.20.

Toro Trading Up 1.1%

TTC stock opened at $100.34 on Friday. Toro has a 1-year low of $62.34 and a 1-year high of $101.08. The firm has a market cap of $9.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.65 and a beta of 0.82. The business’s 50 day moving average is $87.83 and its 200-day moving average is $79.62. The company has a current ratio of 1.87, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, December 17th. The company reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.86 by $0.05. Toro had a return on equity of 28.90% and a net margin of 7.01%.The business had revenue of $1.07 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.95 EPS. Toro’s revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. Toro has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.350-4.50 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Toro will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 22nd were paid a $0.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 22nd. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.6%. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.38. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is presently 49.21%.

About Toro

The Toro Company (NYSE: TTC) specializes in the design, manufacture and marketing of a broad range of outdoor environment equipment for residential, commercial and professional markets. Its product portfolio includes lawn mowers, utility vehicles, snow throwers, irrigation systems and landscape maintenance equipment. Toro’s offerings span walk-behind and ride-on mowers, zero-turn radius mowers, snow blowers, sprinklers, drip irrigation products, spreaders and specialty turf maintenance machines tailored to golf courses, sports fields and municipal parks.

Founded in 1914 and headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota, Toro has built a century-long legacy of innovation in the grounds-care industry.