First American Trust FSB Purchases Shares of 812 Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

First American Trust FSB bought a new position in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 812 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $333,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of LIN. Flputnam Investment Management Co. boosted its stake in Linde by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Flputnam Investment Management Co. now owns 14,378 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $5,905,000 after acquiring an additional 75 shares in the last quarter. CTC Alternative Strategies Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Linde during the fourth quarter valued at $329,000. Mackenzie Financial Corp raised its position in shares of Linde by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 1,354,782 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $556,423,000 after purchasing an additional 18,614 shares during the last quarter. Dakota Wealth Management grew its position in Linde by 55.7% during the 4th quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 9,120 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,746,000 after purchasing an additional 3,262 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Drake & Associates LLC lifted its stake in shares of Linde by 18.6% in the fourth quarter. Drake & Associates LLC now owns 2,593 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,065,000 after buying an additional 406 shares in the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Linde news, VP Juergen Nowicki sold 13,134 shares of Linde stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $459.14, for a total transaction of $6,030,344.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 6,920 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,177,248.80. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other Linde news, VP Juergen Nowicki sold 13,134 shares of Linde stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $459.14, for a total transaction of $6,030,344.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 6,920 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,177,248.80. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, SVP Oliver Pfann sold 300 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.61, for a total transaction of $124,383.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 78,248 shares of company stock valued at $35,811,988 over the last three months. 0.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

LIN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Seaport Res Ptn downgraded shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Mizuho raised their target price on Linde from $503.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Wolfe Research began coverage on Linde in a research report on Friday, March 1st. They issued a “peer perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $429.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $456.79.

Linde Price Performance

Shares of Linde stock traded down $0.81 on Tuesday, hitting $443.94. 314,557 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,269,684. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $451.50 and a 200 day simple moving average of $416.84. Linde plc has a 52 week low of $350.60 and a 52 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. The stock has a market capitalization of $213.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 0.93.

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

Linde Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 14th were paid a dividend of $1.39 per share. This represents a $5.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.25%. This is a positive change from Linde’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 13th. Linde’s payout ratio is presently 44.13%.

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.