Brighton Jones LLC Boosts Stock Position in Linde PLC $LIN

Brighton Jones LLC grew its stake in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 5.9% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,764 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 266 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Linde were worth $2,235,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Linde by 5.0% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 9,600,297 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,470,284,000 after purchasing an additional 453,108 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in Linde by 18.6% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,542,991 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,511,751,000 after purchasing an additional 1,182,157 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in Linde during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $2,097,793,000. Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in Linde by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,859,539 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,797,156,000 after purchasing an additional 40,931 shares during the period. Finally, WCM Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Linde by 1.9% during the 2nd quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 3,401,590 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,577,624,000 after purchasing an additional 61,829 shares during the period. 82.80% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

LIN has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. UBS Group decreased their target price on Linde from $510.00 to $507.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Citigroup lifted their target price on Linde from $530.00 to $535.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Linde in a research note on Saturday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted 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 analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Linde has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $520.00.

Linde Stock Performance

NASDAQ:LIN opened at $446.00 on Monday. 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 PLC has a 1 year low of $408.65 and a 1 year high of $486.38. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $470.10 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $464.83. The company has a market cap of $209.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.72, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 0.93.

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

Linde Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In other news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the director owned 480,543 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $227,479,445.34. The trade was a 9.48% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Corporate 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.