Richardson Financial Services Inc. Makes New $382,000 Investment in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Richardson Financial Services Inc. bought a new position in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 929 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $382,000.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in Linde by 2.6% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 13,919,350 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $5,182,870,000 after acquiring an additional 354,506 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in Linde by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 10,796,924 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $4,434,406,000 after acquiring an additional 141,322 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Linde in the fourth quarter worth $3,066,825,000. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in Linde by 2.5% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 5,081,177 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,891,976,000 after acquiring an additional 123,174 shares in the last quarter. Finally, DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main boosted its holdings in Linde by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 3,959,993 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,624,462,000 after acquiring an additional 138,585 shares in the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on LIN shares. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on Linde from $510.00 to $475.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 6th. Mizuho boosted their price target on Linde from $510.00 to $512.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Citigroup cut Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $475.00 to $500.00 in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, HSBC reduced their price objective on Linde from $458.00 to $452.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 6th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $468.83.

Linde Price Performance

NASDAQ LIN traded down $2.85 during trading on Friday, hitting $436.95. 1,396,066 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,596,934. The company has a market capitalization of $210.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 0.95. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $437.57 and a 200-day simple moving average of $431.64. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. Linde plc has a 12-month low of $358.37 and a 12-month high of $477.71.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The basic materials company reported $3.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.68 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $8.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.38 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 17.49% and a net margin of 19.26%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.42 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Linde plc will post 15.51 EPS for the current year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 18th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 4th will be issued a $1.39 dividend. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.27%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, June 4th. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 43.13%.

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.