Brokerages Set Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) Target Price at $520.00

Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nine brokerages that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, six have given a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $514.8333.

LIN has been the subject of several analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of Linde from $475.00 to $455.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday. Citigroup decreased their price objective on shares of Linde from $535.00 to $520.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Linde in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $516.00 price target on shares of Linde in a research note on Monday. Finally, UBS Group decreased their target price on Linde from $510.00 to $507.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, October 6th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Linde

In related news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of Linde stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $473.38, for a total value of $23,815,274.42. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 480,543 shares in the company, valued at $227,479,445.34. The trade was a 9.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.70% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Linde

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in LIN. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Linde by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 44,638,847 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $20,943,654,000 after acquiring an additional 292,492 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Linde by 5.0% in the first 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 increased its holdings in shares of Linde by 18.6% in the first 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. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Linde in the second quarter valued at about $3,098,772,000. Finally, Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in Linde in the 1st quarter worth approximately $2,097,793,000. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Linde Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LIN opened at $412.18 on Thursday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $464.09 and a 200 day moving average price of $464.32. Linde has a fifty-two week low of $408.65 and a fifty-two week high of $486.38. The firm has a market cap of $193.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.32, a P/E/G ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a current ratio of 0.93.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, October 31st. The basic materials company reported $4.21 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.18 by $0.03. Linde had a return on equity of 19.09% and a net margin of 20.20%.The company had revenue of $8.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.62 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.94 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 2.9% on a year-over-year basis. Linde has set its FY 2025 guidance at 16.350-16.450 EPS. Q4 2025 guidance at 4.100-4.200 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Linde will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, December 17th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 3rd will be given a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 3rd. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.5%. Linde’s payout ratio is 40.19%.

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.