Fulton Bank N.A. Acquires New Stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Fulton Bank N.A. acquired a new stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 498 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $219,000.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in LIN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in shares of Linde by 1.3% during the 4th 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 purchasing an additional 141,322 shares during the last quarter. Provence Wealth Management Group increased its stake in shares of Linde by 655.7% during the 4th quarter. Provence Wealth Management Group now owns 597 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $245,000 after purchasing an additional 518 shares during the last quarter. Schwarz Dygos Wheeler Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Linde in the 4th quarter valued at about $203,000. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC grew its stake in Linde by 2.0% in the 4th quarter. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC now owns 5,278 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,168,000 after buying an additional 104 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Portfolio Design Labs LLC acquired a new position in Linde in the 4th quarter valued at about $1,897,000. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently commented on the stock. HSBC decreased their price target on shares of Linde from $458.00 to $452.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 6th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Linde from $460.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Linde from $470.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, July 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Linde from $430.00 to $480.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on shares of Linde from $495.00 to $516.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $484.18.

Linde Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ LIN traded up $2.16 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $445.66. 1,527,579 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,497,816. The stock has a market cap of $214.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.57, a PEG ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 0.94. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $439.50 and a 200 day simple moving average of $440.21. Linde plc has a 1-year low of $361.02 and a 1-year high of $477.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.76.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 2nd. The basic materials company reported $3.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.79 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $8.30 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.30 billion. Linde had a net margin of 19.26% and a return on equity of 17.49%. The business’s revenue was up 1.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.57 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Linde plc will post 15.49 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 18th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 4th will be issued a dividend of $1.39 per share. This represents a $5.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 4th. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 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.