Procyon Advisors LLC Boosts Stock Holdings in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Procyon Advisors LLC boosted its position in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) by 0.3% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 9,873 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Procyon Advisors LLC’s holdings in Linde were worth $4,055,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. TradeLink Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Linde in the first quarter valued at $2,523,000. Moors & Cabot Inc. grew its position in shares of Linde by 36.4% in the first quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 1,773 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $566,000 after purchasing an additional 473 shares in the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Linde by 25.4% in the first quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 2,996 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $957,000 after purchasing an additional 607 shares in the last quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. grew its position in shares of Linde by 15.3% in the first quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 2,380 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $760,000 after purchasing an additional 316 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ergoteles LLC purchased a new position in shares of Linde in the first quarter valued at $6,682,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on LIN. UBS Group downgraded Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $482.00 to $510.00 in a research report on Wednesday. Seaport Res Ptn cut Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. TD Cowen lifted their price target on Linde from $395.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Wolfe Research started coverage on Linde in a research report on Friday, March 1st. They set a “peer perform” rating for the company. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus downgraded Linde from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $429.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $448.93.

Insider Activity at Linde

In other Linde news, CFO Matthew J. White sold 51,231 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $455.84, for a total value of $23,353,139.04. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 57,634 shares in the company, valued at $26,271,882.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Matthew J. White sold 51,231 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $455.84, for a total value of $23,353,139.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 57,634 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,271,882.56. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 5,277 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $467.39, for a total transaction of $2,466,417.03. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 8,151 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,809,695.89. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 78,248 shares of company stock worth $35,811,988. 0.70% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Linde Stock Down 0.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ LIN traded down $1.53 on Thursday, reaching $464.70. 185,936 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,386,398. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $436.71 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $409.21. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The company has a market cap of $223.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.05 and a beta of 0.93. Linde plc has a 12 month low of $348.38 and a 12 month high of $477.71.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The basic materials company reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.49 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $8.30 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.04 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 17.06% and a net margin of 18.87%. Linde’s quarterly revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.16 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Linde plc will post 15.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Linde Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 14th will be paid a $1.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 13th. This is a positive change from Linde’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.20%. Linde’s payout ratio is currently 44.13%.

Linde 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.