Harbour Trust & Investment Management Co Takes Position in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Harbour Trust & Investment Management Co bought a new stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 3,604 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,480,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of LIN. TradeLink Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Linde in the first quarter worth $2,523,000. Moors & Cabot Inc. increased its stake 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 worth $566,000 after acquiring an additional 473 shares during the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake 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 worth $957,000 after acquiring an additional 607 shares during the last quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. increased its stake 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 worth $760,000 after acquiring an additional 316 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ergoteles LLC acquired a new position in shares of Linde in the first quarter worth $6,682,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on LIN. UBS Group downgraded shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $482.00 to $510.00 in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Wolfe Research began coverage on shares of Linde in a research report on Friday, March 1st. They set a “peer perform” rating on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $429.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Linde from $470.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Mizuho increased their target price on shares of Linde from $503.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $448.93.

Linde Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LIN traded down $3.73 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $457.94. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,436,512 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,326,015. The stock has a market capitalization of $220.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.64, a PEG ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 0.93. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $447.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $414.11. Linde plc has a fifty-two week low of $350.60 and a fifty-two week high of $477.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.80.

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

Linde Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 14th were paid a $1.39 dividend. This represents a $5.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.21%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, March 13th. This is a boost from Linde’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 44.13%.

Insider Activity at Linde

In related news, VP Sean Durbin sold 5,277 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $467.39, for a total value of $2,466,417.03. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 8,151 shares in the company, valued at $3,809,695.89. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other Linde news, SVP Oliver Pfann sold 300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.61, for a total transaction of $124,383.00. 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 firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $467.39, for a total transaction of $2,466,417.03. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 8,151 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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. Company insiders own 0.70% of the company’s stock.

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.