Connors Investor Services Inc. Raises Stock Position in Linde PLC $LIN

Connors Investor Services Inc. lifted its position in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 23.6% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 39,025 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,448 shares during the quarter. Linde accounts for 1.6% of Connors Investor Services Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 18th biggest holding. Connors Investor Services Inc.’s holdings in Linde were worth $18,310,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Brighton Jones LLC bought a new stake in shares of Linde in the 4th quarter worth $2,752,000. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC lifted its position in Linde by 14.1% during the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 777 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $325,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its position in Linde by 25.4% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 7,336 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,416,000 after purchasing an additional 1,488 shares in the last quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of Linde by 3.2% in the first quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 21,304 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $9,920,000 after acquiring an additional 658 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Linde by 39.2% in the first quarter. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC now owns 1,253 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $583,000 after acquiring an additional 353 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on LIN. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Linde in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Linde from $530.00 to $535.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on Linde from $510.00 to $507.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Linde from $470.00 to $475.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 4th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $520.00.

Linde Stock Down 0.0%

Shares of NASDAQ:LIN opened at $449.92 on Thursday. Linde PLC has a 1 year low of $408.65 and a 1 year high of $486.38. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $471.33 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $463.95. The firm has a market capitalization of $210.97 billion, a PE ratio of 32.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.97 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 0.93 and a quick ratio of 0.78.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last announced its earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.03 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $8.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.35 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 19.09% and a net margin of 20.20%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.85 earnings per share. Linde has set its FY 2025 guidance at 16.300-16.500 EPS. Q3 2025 guidance at 4.100-4.20 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 4th were issued a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 4th. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.3%. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is currently 42.67%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Linde news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $473.38, for a total transaction of $23,815,274.42. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 480,543 shares in the company, valued at $227,479,445.34. This represents a 9.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.