Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) Rating Increased to Buy at Citigroup

Citigroup upgraded shares of Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Monday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Citigroup currently has $535.00 price objective on the basic materials company’s stock, up from their previous price objective of $500.00.

LIN has been the subject of a number of other reports. Argus raised shares of Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Royal Bank Of Canada assumed coverage on shares of Linde in a research report on Friday, June 13th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $576.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd. Two research 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 company. According to MarketBeat, Linde presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $515.90.

Linde Stock Performance

NASDAQ:LIN opened at $477.17 on Monday. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $460.47 and its two-hundred day moving average is $450.38. Linde has a fifty-two week low of $408.65 and a fifty-two week high of $487.49. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a market cap of $224.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.65, a P/E/G ratio of 3.36 and a beta of 0.96.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released 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. The company had revenue of $8.11 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.24 billion. Linde had a net margin of 20.02% and a return on equity of 18.95%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.75 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Linde will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 18th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 4th were given a $1.50 dividend. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.26%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, June 4th. Linde’s payout ratio is currently 43.57%.

Insider Activity

In related news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of Linde stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $457.04, for a total value of $908,138.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 22,639 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,346,928.56. This trade represents a 8.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total value of $3,314,065.62. Following the completion of the sale, 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. Company insiders own 0.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Linde

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in LIN. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Linde in the fourth quarter worth $2,901,853,000. Freemont Capital Pte Ltd bought a new position in shares of Linde in the 4th quarter worth about $2,128,233,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in shares of Linde in the 1st quarter valued at about $2,097,793,000. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Linde by 58,312.0% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,415,935 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,590,596,000 after buying an additional 3,410,087 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors grew its position in shares of Linde by 34.4% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 11,547,765 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,834,631,000 after buying an additional 2,957,604 shares during the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Linde Company 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.