Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV Lowers Stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV trimmed its stake in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) by 3.9% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 8,446 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 341 shares during the quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV’s holdings in Linde were worth $3,922,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of LIN. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. lifted its position in shares of Linde by 1.9% during the first quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 1,468,134 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $681,684,000 after purchasing an additional 27,236 shares in the last quarter. Plimoth Trust Co. LLC lifted its position in shares of Linde by 1.0% during the first quarter. Plimoth Trust Co. LLC now owns 8,052 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,739,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. Naviter Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Linde by 4.2% during the first quarter. Naviter Wealth LLC now owns 6,100 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $2,832,000 after purchasing an additional 246 shares in the last quarter. Synergy Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in Linde by 68.7% in the first quarter. Synergy Asset Management LLC now owns 8,914 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,139,000 after acquiring an additional 3,629 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Oak Thistle LLC acquired a new stake in Linde in the first quarter valued at $234,000. 82.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Citigroup downgraded 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. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. UBS Group downgraded Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $482.00 to $510.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 27th. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Linde from $510.00 to $512.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of Linde from $510.00 to $475.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, May 6th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $468.83.

Linde Stock Performance

Shares of LIN stock traded up $0.88 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $430.97. The stock had a trading volume of 229,225 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,054,382. 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 plc has a twelve month low of $358.37 and a twelve month high of $477.71. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $435.05 and a 200-day simple moving average of $434.38. The firm has a market capitalization of $207.16 billion, a PE ratio of 33.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.94.

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

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 18th. Investors of record on Tuesday, June 4th were given a $1.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, June 4th. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.29%. Linde’s dividend payout ratio is presently 43.13%.

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.