State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D Sells 544 Shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D lessened its holdings in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) by 0.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 278,981 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 544 shares during the quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D owned approximately 0.06% of Linde worth $114,580,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in Linde by 4.2% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 1,237 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $460,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the period. Arkadios Wealth Advisors bought a new position in Linde during the third quarter worth $254,000. Global Retirement Partners LLC increased its position in Linde by 8.3% during the third quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 628 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $238,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares during the period. Ziegler Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Linde during the third quarter worth $219,000. Finally, Capital Investment Advisors LLC bought a new position in Linde during the third quarter worth $233,000. Institutional investors own 82.80% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Citigroup lowered shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $475.00 to $500.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $429.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. UBS Group downgraded shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $482.00 to $510.00 in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, Mizuho raised Linde from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $510.00 price target for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 18th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $456.79.

Linde Price Performance

NASDAQ:LIN traded down $0.65 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $443.18. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,583,752 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,209,385. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $455.83 and a 200-day simple moving average of $420.27. The company has a market capitalization of $213.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.11, a PEG ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a current ratio of 0.80 and a quick ratio of 0.67. Linde plc has a twelve month low of $350.60 and a twelve month high of $477.71.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The basic materials company reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.49 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $8.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.04 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 17.06% and a net margin of 18.87%. Linde’s revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.16 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Linde plc will post 15.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Linde Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 14th were paid a dividend of $1.39 per share. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.25%. This is a positive change from Linde’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 13th. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 44.13%.

Insider Activity

In other news, VP Juergen Nowicki sold 13,134 shares of Linde stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $459.14, for a total transaction of $6,030,344.76. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 6,920 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,177,248.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, VP Juergen Nowicki sold 13,134 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $459.14, for a total transaction of $6,030,344.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 6,920 shares in the company, valued at $3,177,248.80. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 5,277 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $467.39, for a total value of $2,466,417.03. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 8,151 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,809,695.89. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 78,248 shares of company stock valued at $35,811,988. 0.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.