Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.05 EPS

Linde (NASDAQ:LIN) announced its earnings results on Thursday. The basic materials company reported $3.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.89 by $0.05, Briefing.com reports. Linde had a net margin of 19.49% and a return on equity of 17.92%. The business had revenue of $8.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.39 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.63 earnings per share. Linde’s revenue was up 1.9% compared to the same quarter last year.

Linde Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of LIN stock traded up $1.16 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $457.31. The company had a trading volume of 2,347,307 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,834,612. Linde has a 1-year low of $385.12 and a 1-year high of $487.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.95 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The firm has a market cap of $218.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.88, a P/E/G ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a 50 day moving average of $473.04 and a 200 day moving average of $451.73.

Linde Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 3rd will be paid a $1.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 3rd. This represents a $5.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.22%. Linde’s payout ratio is presently 42.31%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, VP John Panikar sold 10,025 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $462.75, for a total transaction of $4,639,068.75. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 17,584 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,136,996. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Linde from $430.00 to $480.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Mizuho raised their price objective on shares of Linde from $520.00 to $530.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Linde from $495.00 to $516.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Linde from $477.00 to $507.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on Linde from $470.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, July 12th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $490.75.

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.