New York State Common Retirement Fund Sells 46,599 Shares of Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN)

New York State Common Retirement Fund lowered its stake in Linde PLC (NASDAQ:LIN - Free Report) by 7.3% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 591,502 shares of the basic materials company's stock after selling 46,599 shares during the quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned approximately 0.13% of Linde worth $275,427,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of LIN. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Linde by 34.9% in the 4th quarter. New Age Alpha Advisors LLC now owns 85 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 22 shares during the period. Rockingstone Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Linde by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. Rockingstone Advisors LLC now owns 8,340 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $3,883,000 after purchasing an additional 25 shares during the period. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Linde by 20.2% in the 1st quarter. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC now owns 149 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $69,000 after purchasing an additional 25 shares during the period. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Linde by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC now owns 6,448 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $2,700,000 after purchasing an additional 26 shares during the period. Finally, Stonebrook Private Inc. boosted its stake in Linde by 5.4% in the 4th quarter. Stonebrook Private Inc. now owns 527 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $221,000 after purchasing an additional 27 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.80% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Argus upgraded shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Royal Bank Of Canada assumed coverage on shares of Linde in a report on Friday, June 13th. They set an "outperform" rating and a $576.00 price target on the stock. Citigroup upgraded shares of Linde from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and boosted their price target for the company from $500.00 to $535.00 in a report on Monday, June 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Linde to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Thursday, April 3rd. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Linde from $485.00 to $504.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 9th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Linde currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $518.80.

Insider Activity

In other Linde news, VP David P. Strauss sold 1,987 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $457.04, for a total transaction of $908,138.48. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 22,639 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,346,928.56. This represents a 8.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, VP Sean Durbin sold 7,261 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $456.42, for a total transaction of $3,314,065.62. Following the transaction, the vice president owned 8,151 shares in the company, valued at $3,720,279.42. The trade was a 47.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.70% of the company's stock.

Linde Stock Down 0.2%

Shares of LIN stock traded down $0.89 on Wednesday, hitting $459.67. The company's stock had a trading volume of 1,437,985 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,970,501. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 0.94 and a quick ratio of 0.80. Linde PLC has a fifty-two week low of $408.65 and a fifty-two week high of $487.49. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $464.04 and its 200-day moving average price is $453.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $216.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.38, a P/E/G ratio of 3.31 and a beta of 0.96.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The basic materials company reported $3.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.92 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $8.11 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.24 billion. Linde had a net margin of 20.02% and a return on equity of 18.95%. Linde's quarterly revenue was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.75 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Linde PLC will post 16.54 EPS for the current year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 18th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 4th were issued a dividend of $1.50 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, June 4th. This represents a $6.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.31%. Linde's payout ratio is 43.57%.

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.