Linde plc operates as an industrial gas and engineering company in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia 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. The company also designs and constructs turnkey process plants for third-party customers, as well as for the gas businesses in various locations, such as olefin, natural gas, air separation, hydrogen, and synthesis gas plants. It serves a range of industries, including healthcare, energy, manufacturing, food, beverage carbonation, fiber-optics, steel making, aerospace, chemicals, and water treatment. The company was founded in 1879 and is based in Woking, the United Kingdom.
Analyst Ratings Changes
A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on LIN. AlphaValue upgraded shares of Linde to a "reduce" rating in a report on Tuesday, May 3rd. Credit Suisse Group initiated coverage on Linde in a report on Tuesday, May 31st. They set an "outperform" rating and a $380.00 price target for the company. Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Linde from $370.00 to $369.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 13th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their target price on shares of Linde from €370.00 ($381.44) to €355.00 ($365.98) and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI raised shares of Linde from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $355.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday, May 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Linde currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $368.86.
Linde Stock Performance
Shares of NYSE:LIN traded up $2.43 during trading on Monday, hitting $304.40. 7,126 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,351,578. The company has a market cap of $151.70 billion, a PE ratio of 43.76, a P/E/G ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 0.87. Linde has a 52-week low of $265.12 and a 52-week high of $352.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.62. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $296.43 and a 200 day moving average of $303.98.
Linde (NYSE:LIN - Get Rating) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 28th. The basic materials company reported $3.10 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.99 by $0.11. Linde had a return on equity of 13.41% and a net margin of 10.88%. The business had revenue of $8.50 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.39 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.70 EPS. The firm's revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Linde will post 11.9 EPS for the current year.
Linde Dividend Announcement
The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 2nd will be paid a $1.17 dividend. This represents a $4.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.54%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 1st. Linde's dividend payout ratio is presently 67.83%.