First Financial Bank Trust Division Makes New $222,000 Investment in Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN)

First Financial Bank Trust Division acquired a new position in shares of Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 479 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $222,000.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in LIN. Provence Wealth Management Group purchased a new position in shares of Linde during the third quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Scarborough Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Linde during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Johnson Financial Group Inc. boosted 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 valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 24 shares during the period. Addison Advisors LLC boosted 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 valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 62 shares during the period. Finally, Hexagon Capital Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of Linde by 347.6% during the fourth quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC now owns 94 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $39,000 after buying an additional 73 shares during the period. 82.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on LIN shares. Wolfe Research started coverage on shares of Linde in a research note on Friday, March 1st. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. Citigroup downgraded shares of Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $475.00 to $500.00 in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. UBS Group downgraded Linde from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $482.00 to $510.00 in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Linde from $480.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, Mizuho upped their target price on Linde from $510.00 to $512.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $468.83.

Linde Trading Down 0.1 %

LIN opened at $440.02 on Wednesday. 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 company’s 50 day simple moving average is $436.79 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $432.17. Linde plc has a 1-year low of $358.37 and a 1-year high of $477.71. The firm has a market capitalization of $211.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 0.95.

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) last released its earnings results 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. Linde had a net margin of 19.26% and a return on equity of 17.49%. The business had revenue of $8.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.38 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.42 EPS. The business’s revenue was down 1.1% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Linde plc will post 15.51 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 18th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 4th were given a dividend of $1.39 per share. This represents a $5.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.26%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, June 4th. Linde’s 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.