Oak Thistle LLC Makes New Investment in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Oak Thistle LLC bought a new position in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 503 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $234,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Linde by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 10,796,924 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,434,406,000 after purchasing an additional 141,322 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Linde during the 4th quarter worth approximately $3,066,825,000. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main boosted its stake in Linde by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 3,959,993 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,624,462,000 after purchasing an additional 138,585 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in Linde by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,830,970 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,162,708,000 after buying an additional 64,362 shares during the period. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted its position in shares of Linde by 6.2% in the third quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 2,210,751 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $823,174,000 after acquiring an additional 129,610 shares during the period. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have weighed in on the stock. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective on shares of Linde from $510.00 to $475.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 6th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Linde from $510.00 to $512.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. UBS Group cut shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $482.00 to $510.00 in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. Finally, HSBC reduced their price target on shares of Linde from $458.00 to $452.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 6th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $468.83.

Linde Trading Down 2.2 %

LIN traded down $9.87 during trading on Monday, reaching $428.94. 2,462,594 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,070,323. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $435.71 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $434.09. The stock has a market capitalization of $206.18 billion, a PE ratio of 33.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.94. Linde plc has a one year low of $358.37 and a one year high of $477.71. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 2nd. The basic materials company reported $3.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.68 by $0.07. Linde had a return on equity of 17.49% and a net margin of 19.26%. The business had revenue of $8.10 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.38 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.42 earnings per share. Linde’s quarterly revenue was down 1.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Linde plc will post 15.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 18th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, June 4th were given a dividend of $1.39 per share. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.30%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, June 4th. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is presently 43.13%.

Linde Company Profile

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.