Dillon & Associates Inc. Invests $234,000 in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Dillon & Associates Inc. purchased a new stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm purchased 490 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $234,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Linde by 566.9% in the 1st quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 1,833,465 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $851,314,000 after purchasing an additional 1,558,538 shares during the period. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in Linde during the second quarter worth $420,720,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in Linde by 47,830.2% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 936,076 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $446,377,000 after acquiring an additional 934,123 shares during the last quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Linde in the first quarter valued at $210,480,000. Finally, AMF Tjanstepension AB raised its stake in shares of Linde by 108.7% in the third quarter. AMF Tjanstepension AB now owns 784,477 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $374,086,000 after acquiring an additional 408,659 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on LIN. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Linde from $477.00 to $507.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Mizuho upped their target price on Linde from $520.00 to $530.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Bank of America raised their price target on Linde from $495.00 to $516.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Linde from $430.00 to $480.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Barclays lifted their target price on Linde from $460.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $490.75.

Linde Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of Linde stock opened at $455.59 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.81. The stock has a market cap of $216.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.59, a PEG ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 0.94. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $471.16 and its two-hundred day moving average is $452.49. Linde plc has a 1 year low of $395.00 and a 1 year high of $487.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The basic materials company reported $3.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.89 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $8.36 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.39 billion. Linde had a net margin of 19.33% and a return on equity of 18.16%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.63 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Linde plc will post 15.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 3rd will be paid a dividend of $1.39 per share. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.22%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 3rd. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 42.22%.

Insider Activity at Linde

In other Linde news, VP John Panikar sold 10,025 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $462.75, for a total value of $4,639,068.75. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 17,584 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,136,996. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About Linde

Linde plc operates as an industrial gas company in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South Pacific. It offers atmospheric gases, including oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and rare gases; and process gases, such as carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, electronic gases, specialty gases, and acetylene.