FUKOKU MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE Co Reduces Stock Holdings in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN)

FUKOKU MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE Co reduced its stake in shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 1.4% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 2,108 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 30 shares during the quarter. FUKOKU MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE Co’s holdings in Linde were worth $982,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of LIN. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 34.9% during the 4th quarter. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC now owns 85 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $36,000 after acquiring an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. Rockingstone Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Rockingstone Advisors LLC now owns 8,340 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,883,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares in the last quarter. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 20.2% during the 1st quarter. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC now owns 149 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $69,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares in the last quarter. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC now owns 6,448 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $2,700,000 after acquiring an additional 26 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stonebrook Private Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Linde by 5.4% during the 4th quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. now owns 527 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $221,000 after acquiring an additional 27 shares in the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Linde news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 sale, the vice president owned 22,639 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,346,928.56. This trade represents a 8.07% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total value of $3,314,065.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 8,151 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,720,279.42. The trade was a 47.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Linde Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LIN opened at $468.81 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $463.44 and a 200 day moving average price of $452.65. Linde PLC has a twelve month low of $408.65 and a twelve month high of $487.49. The company has a market cap of $220.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.05, a PEG ratio of 3.32 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The basic materials company reported $3.95 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.92 by $0.03. Linde had a return on equity of 18.95% and a net margin of 20.02%. The company had revenue of $8.11 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.24 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.75 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up .1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Linde PLC will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 18th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 4th were given a $1.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 4th. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.28%. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is currently 43.57%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently issued reports on LIN. Argus upgraded Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. UBS Group upped their price target on Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Linde to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 3rd. Royal Bank Of Canada began coverage on Linde in a research note on Friday, June 13th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $576.00 price target for the company. Finally, Citigroup upgraded Linde from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $500.00 to $535.00 in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $518.80.

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.