Head to Head Contrast: Toro (TTC) & The Competition

Toro (NYSE:TTC) is one of 437 publicly-traded companies in the “Machinery” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare Toro to similar businesses based on the strength of its earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Toro and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Toro	0	5	2	0	2.29
Toro Competitors	4048	14428	17812	760	2.41

Toro presently has a consensus target price of $101.75, indicating a potential upside of 3.39%. As a group, “Machinery” companies have a potential upside of 24.40%. Given Toro’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Toro has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

88.0% of Toro shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 52.6% of shares of all “Machinery” companies are owned by institutional investors. 1.9% of Toro shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 13.8% of shares of all “Machinery” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility & Risk

Toro has a beta of 0.69, indicating that its share price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Toro’s peers have a beta of 4.48, indicating that their average share price is 348% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Toro and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Toro	$4.51 billion	$316.10 million	28.36
Toro Competitors	$4.46 billion	$345.47 million	3.77

Toro has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its peers. Toro is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Dividends

Toro pays an annual dividend of $1.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Toro pays out 45.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Machinery” companies pay a dividend yield of 2.2% and pay out 27.2% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Toro has raised its dividend for 21 consecutive years. Toro lags its peers as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares Toro and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Toro	7.29%	31.13%	12.25%
Toro Competitors	-1,938.44%	-13.20%	0.77%

Summary

Toro peers beat Toro on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

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. This segment also provides irrigation and lighting products that consist of sprinkler heads, electric and hydraulic valves, controllers, computer irrigation central control systems, coupling systems, and ag-irrigation drip tape and hose products, as well as professionally installed landscape lighting products offered through distributors and landscape contractors. The Residential segment provides walk power mowers, zero-turn riding mowers, snow throwers, replacement parts, and home solution products that include grass and hedge trimmers, leaf blowers, blower-vacuums, chainsaws, string trimmers, hoses, and hose-end retail irrigation products. It sells its products through a network of distributors, dealers, mass retailers, hardware retailers, equipment rental centers, home centers, and online. The company was founded in 1914 and is headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota.