Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC Grows Stock Holdings in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) by 17.8% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 700 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 106 shares during the period. Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Linde were worth $293,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of LIN. Channel Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of Linde by 30.4% in the fourth quarter. Channel Wealth LLC now owns 7,385 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,092,000 after acquiring an additional 1,723 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its position in shares of Linde by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,145,643 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $898,188,000 after buying an additional 46,843 shares during the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Linde by 6.7% during the 3rd quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 79,472 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $37,898,000 after purchasing an additional 5,021 shares during the last quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC boosted its stake in Linde by 16.8% during the third quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC now owns 9,604 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $4,580,000 after buying an additional 1,383 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd raised its stake in Linde by 4.4% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 54,975 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $26,215,000 after purchasing an additional 2,312 shares during the period. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on Linde from $477.00 to $507.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Citigroup cut their price objective on Linde from $490.00 to $480.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Mizuho raised their target price on Linde from $520.00 to $530.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price target on shares of Linde from $510.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Erste Group Bank reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Linde in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $501.82.

Linde Stock Down 0.4 %

LIN stock opened at $439.25 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The company’s 50 day moving average is $435.65 and its two-hundred day moving average is $453.02. The stock has a market cap of $209.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.35, a PEG ratio of 2.74 and a beta of 0.94. Linde plc has a twelve month low of $396.07 and a twelve month high of $487.49.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The basic materials company reported $3.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.89 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $8.36 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.39 billion. Linde had a net margin of 19.33% and a return on equity of 18.16%. Linde’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.63 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Linde plc will post 15.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Linde Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 3rd were given a $1.39 dividend. This represents a $5.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.27%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 3rd. Linde’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 42.22%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, VP Guillermo Bichara sold 4,385 shares of Linde stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $460.73, for a total value of $2,020,301.05. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 22,776 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,493,586.48. The trade was a 16.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, VP David P. Strauss sold 2,218 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $434.35, for a total transaction of $963,388.30. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 25,926 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,260,958.10. This represents a 7.88 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.60% of the stock is owned by 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.