Riversedge Advisors LLC Makes New Investment in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN)

Riversedge Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 483 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $225,000.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 211,395 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $88,505,000 after purchasing an additional 1,320 shares during the last quarter. Prosperity Consulting Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 4.5% during the fourth quarter. Prosperity Consulting Group LLC now owns 7,788 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,261,000 after purchasing an additional 332 shares during the last quarter. Jump Financial LLC grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 300.3% during the fourth quarter. Jump Financial LLC now owns 26,150 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $10,948,000 after purchasing an additional 19,618 shares during the last quarter. Groupama Asset Managment grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 23.0% during the fourth quarter. Groupama Asset Managment now owns 22,235 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $9,287,000 after purchasing an additional 4,162 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Taurus Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Linde by 0.9% during the fourth quarter. Taurus Asset Management LLC now owns 55,009 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $23,031,000 after purchasing an additional 484 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on LIN shares. Royal Bank Of Canada started coverage on Linde in a report on Friday, June 13th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $576.00 price target on the stock. Citigroup raised Linde from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $500.00 to $535.00 in a report on Monday, June 30th. Argus raised Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Linde currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $518.80.

Linde Price Performance

LIN stock opened at $468.81 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $463.44 and a 200-day moving average of $452.65. Linde PLC has a 12-month low of $408.65 and a 12-month high of $487.49. The company has a current ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a market cap of $220.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.05, a PEG ratio of 3.32 and a beta of 0.96.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The basic materials company reported $3.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.92 by $0.03. Linde had a return on equity of 18.95% and a net margin of 20.02%. The firm had revenue of $8.11 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.24 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.75 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 18th. Investors of record on Wednesday, June 4th were given a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, June 4th. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.28%. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is currently 43.57%.

Insider Activity at Linde

In related news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of Linde stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $457.04, for a total transaction of $908,138.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 22,639 shares in the company, valued at $10,346,928.56. The trade was a 8.07% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of Linde stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total value of $3,314,065.62. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 8,151 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,720,279.42. This represents a 47.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.70% of the company’s stock.

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.