450 Shares in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) Acquired by SPC Financial Inc.

SPC Financial Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 450 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $210,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Diversify Advisory Services LLC grew its stake in shares of Linde by 2.5% in the 1st quarter. Diversify Advisory Services LLC now owns 999 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $450,000 after purchasing an additional 24 shares during the last quarter. IFP Advisors Inc grew its stake in shares of Linde by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 3,207 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,493,000 after purchasing an additional 24 shares during the last quarter. Richards Merrill & Peterson Inc. grew its stake in shares of Linde by 3.0% in the 1st quarter. Richards Merrill & Peterson Inc. now owns 816 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $380,000 after purchasing an additional 24 shares during the last quarter. Rockingstone Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Linde by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. Rockingstone Advisors LLC now owns 8,340 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,883,000 after purchasing an additional 25 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Linde by 20.2% in the 1st quarter. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC now owns 149 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $69,000 after purchasing an additional 25 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In related news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of Linde stock in a transaction 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,346,928.56. The trade was a 8.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of Linde stock in a transaction 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 directly owned 8,151 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

LIN has been the topic of several analyst reports. Royal Bank Of Canada started coverage on Linde in a research note on Friday, June 13th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $576.00 target price on the stock. UBS Group raised their price target on Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 9th. Citigroup raised Linde from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a report on Monday, June 30th. Finally, Argus raised Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $518.80.

Linde Stock Performance

Shares of LIN stock opened at $459.41 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $467.15 and a 200 day moving average price of $457.76. The stock has a market cap of $216.25 billion, a PE ratio of 32.67, a P/E/G ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 0.92. Linde PLC has a 1 year low of $408.65 and a 1 year high of $487.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.94.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.03 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $8.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.35 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 18.95% and a net margin of 20.02%. Linde’s revenue was up 2.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.85 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Linde PLC will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 4th will be issued a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 4th. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. Linde’s payout ratio is currently 43.57%.

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.