TTC designs, manufactures & markets professional turf maintenance equipment, irrigation systems, landscaping equipment, agricultural irrigation systems, and residential yard products. For the 3 months ended 2/2/01, net sales rose 1% to $283.5M. Net income rose 43% to $1.3M. Results reflect increased demand for landscape contractor mowing equipments, sales from two additional distributors, higher currency gains and increased royalty income.

April 29, 2001

Beautiful weather across the country is probably having people dreaming of barbecues and pool parties. However, spring and summer also bring another warm weather activity to mind, cutting the grass. This ties right into our new play, Toro. TTC is an excellent seasonal play, due to its huge line of lawn and gardening equipment. Additionally, Toro is a huge beneficiary of the boom in golf course construction. Toro's top of the line products serves to keep a multitude of golf courses across the country looking in tiptop shape. The company's fundamentals are also solid. Toro is expected to show profits of $2.29 this quarter when it reports earnings on May 23rd. Despite the company's solid earnings, it only trades at a trailing P/E of 13.21. Turning to the chart, TTC has been building a symmetrical triangle over the last two months and has just broken to the upside. Major support can be found at the 50-DMA of $43.94 (just above our initial stop of $43.50). TTC may accelerate once it surpasses the $47.00 resistance level. Traders might be interested in picking up this stock if it can make this move accompanied by midday volume of over 50,000 shares. The next resistance level after that is $47.65 (the all time high). The MACD just turned positive last week, which is a good sign that TTC is on the verge of making another foray into new high territory. The Money Flow and OBV are also both solid and the RSI has plenty of room before an overbought condition is signaled. We our placing our initial stop at $43.50 to lower our downside risk.

Picked April 29th @ $46.25
Change since picked +0.00
Stop Loss @ $43.50

May 22, 2001

TTC dropped through the bottom of its base and eventually found support just slightly below its 50-DMA of $44.91. Nevertheless, the drop was just enough to trigger our stop at $44.88. TTC will be reporting earnings tomorrow morning; therefore we would have been exiting this play at the close regardless of the intraday stop.

Picked April 29th @ $46.25
Profit/Loss -1.37 (3%) (Stopped Tuesday @ $44.88)
Best Profit +1.75 (4%)

May 20, 2001

After two days of increasing volatility for TTC, the stock returned to its quiet ways on Friday as it lost ground on low volume of 24,500 shares. It is somewhat surprising that there is not more interest in the shares of this lawn and gardening equipment company as we head into the summer months. TTC possesses some solid fundamentals and trades with a relatively attractive P/E of only 13.10. TTC has found resistance at its 52-week high of $48.00, which was established last week. After momentum traders failed to drive the stock higher following the move into new high ground, the stock has now pulled back and is looking to establish a support level. TTC might find support at $45.09, which was the low print of the stock's current base. A bounce off this level may provide a good entry point and may be the start of the stock's possible attempt to move higher into its earnings report on Wednesday. Although, given our rule of not holding stocks through earnings, we will drop TTC no later than Tuesday’s closing print. Our stop at $44.88 might be in jeopardy, however, because the MACD rolled over and offered a sell signal on Friday. On the plus side, the RSI has pulled back to a level that has resulted in previous rallies.

Picked April 29th @ $46.25
Change since picked -0.40
Stop Loss @ $44.88