Linde PLC $LIN Shares Sold by First National Trust Co

First National Trust Co cut its holdings in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN) by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 34,966 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 789 shares during the period. First National Trust Co’s holdings in Linde were worth $16,405,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 453,108 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position 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 acquired a new position in Linde during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $2,097,793,000. Invesco Ltd. boosted its position 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 boosted its position 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 institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Linde news, Director Stephen F. Angel sold 50,309 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The shares were 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $227,479,445.34. This represents a 9.48% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.70% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Linde Stock Performance

LIN opened at $444.82 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $208.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 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 PLC has a 1-year low of $408.65 and a 1-year high of $486.38. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $469.43 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $464.82.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $4.09 earnings per share 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 was up 2.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $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. Research analysts predict that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, December 17th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 3rd will be issued a $1.50 dividend. This represents a $6.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 3rd. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is presently 42.67%.

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.