Industrial Alliance Investment Management Inc. Buys New Position in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Industrial Alliance Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm purchased 1,736 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $806,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in LIN. Retirement Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Linde during the first quarter worth about $25,000. First Pacific Financial acquired a new position in shares of Linde during the first quarter worth about $30,000. Scarborough Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Linde during the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. Johnson Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Linde by 44.4% during the fourth quarter. Johnson Financial Group Inc. now owns 78 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Addison Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Linde by 310.0% during the fourth quarter. Addison Advisors LLC now owns 82 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $34,000 after buying an additional 62 shares in the last quarter. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the company. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Linde from $510.00 to $475.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 6th. HSBC lowered 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. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. UBS Group decreased their target price on Linde from $490.00 to $475.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Finally, Mizuho boosted their target price on Linde from $510.00 to $512.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Linde presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $470.10.

Linde Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LIN traded up $0.89 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $450.85. The company had a trading volume of 1,755,627 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,981,529. The firm has a market capitalization of $216.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $437.86 and its 200 day moving average price is $438.69. Linde plc has a fifty-two week low of $361.02 and a fifty-two week high of $477.71.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The basic materials company reported $3.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.68 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $8.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.38 billion. Linde had a return on equity of 17.49% and a net margin of 19.26%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.42 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Linde plc will post 15.49 EPS for the current year.

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.