Stiles Financial Services Inc Purchases 27 Shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Stiles Financial Services Inc lifted its position in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 655 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 27 shares during the quarter. Stiles Financial Services Inc’s holdings in Linde were worth $313,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Linde by 566.9% during the first 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 bought a new position in Linde during the 2nd quarter worth $420,720,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its position in Linde by 47,830.2% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 936,076 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $446,377,000 after purchasing an additional 934,123 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Linde by 91.6% during the 1st quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 968,402 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $449,648,000 after buying an additional 463,096 shares during the period. Finally, iA Global Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Linde in the 1st quarter valued at about $210,480,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently commented on LIN. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price objective on Linde from $510.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Linde from $430.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Linde from $470.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, July 12th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Linde from $477.00 to $507.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on Linde from $460.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, August 5th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $490.75.

Insider Activity

In related news, VP John Panikar sold 10,025 shares of the company’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 sale, the vice president now owns 17,584 shares in the company, valued at $8,136,996. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Corporate insiders own 0.60% of the company’s stock.

Linde Stock Performance

Shares of Linde stock opened at $464.73 on Friday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $472.12 and a 200 day simple moving average of $452.12. Linde plc has a one year low of $390.38 and a one year high of $487.49. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $221.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.34, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 0.94.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The basic materials company reported $3.94 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.89 by $0.05. Linde had a return on equity of 18.16% and a net margin of 19.33%. The firm had revenue of $8.36 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.39 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.63 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that Linde plc will post 15.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 3rd will be paid a $1.39 dividend. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.20%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 3rd. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 42.22%.

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.