Linde plc (NASDAQ: LIN), the world’s largest industrial gases company, heads into the December 10, 2025 U.S. session in a strangely mixed place:
- the share price is hugging fresh 52‑week lows,
- the CEO just bought almost $1 million of stock on the open market,
- short interest is ticking up, but
- Wall Street still sees roughly 30% upside over the next 12 months. [1]
Here’s what happened after the bell on December 9, 2025, and what traders and longer‑term investors should have on their radar before the market opens on December 10.
How Linde Stock Traded on December 9, 2025
Regular session: small bounce after a sharp sell‑off
According to StockAnalysis data, Linde shares: [2]
- Closed on Tuesday, December 9, 2025 at $390.38,
- Up 0.26% on the day,
- After trading in a $390.10–$396.83 intraday range,
- On volume of about 3.6 million shares.
That mild green day came right after a rough session on December 8, when the stock finished at $389.38, down 2.55%, helping push Linde to its lowest levels of the year. [3]
Year‑to‑date, MarketBeat’s overview page notes that LIN started 2025 around $418.67 and is now trading in the high $390s, roughly 7% lower for the year despite strong earnings. [4]
After-hours: slight drift lower
Extended-hours data from Public.com shows that on December 9: [5]
- Linde closed the regular session at $390.38,
- And traded at $389.35 after hours,
- A modest 0.26% drop in thin evening trading.
So the immediate takeaway after the bell: no dramatic after‑hours move, but the stock remains pinned near the bottom of its recent range.
Technical Picture: 52‑Week Low Zone and “Oversold” Signals
From a technical standpoint, Linde looks like a classic “great company, ugly chart” situation.
MarketBeat’s recent filings coverage pegs Linde’s: [6]
- 52‑week low at $387.78,
- 52‑week high at $486.38,
- 50‑day moving average around $432.28,
- 200‑day moving average around $457.44.
At Tuesday’s $390.38 close, that means LIN is trading roughly:
- ~10% below its 50‑day moving average, and
- ~15% below its 200‑day moving average.
Benzinga’s December 8 “oversold materials stocks” screen flagged Linde with a Relative Strength Index (RSI) around 28.6, firmly in “oversold” territory (below 30), after about a 5% drop over the prior month. [7]
Separately, MarketBeat’s technical/volatility overlay (via TradeSmith) now classifies Linde’s price trend in a “red zone” after more than a month of underperformance, reflecting a deeper‑than‑usual pullback rather than a gentle drift lower. [8]
What this means in plain English:
- The price has broken well below its longer‑term trend lines.
- Momentum indicators say “washed out”, not “euphoric”.
- The 52‑week low zone around $388 is now the obvious line in the sand that traders will watch at the open on December 10.
Technical levels are not magic; they’re just places where lots of human and algorithmic attention is clustered. But they do matter precisely because so many people stare at them.
CEO Sanjiv Lamba’s ~$1 Million Insider Buy
The most eye‑catching development ahead of the December 9 session was CEO Sanjiv Lamba stepping in as a buyer.
Multiple data providers (GuruFocus, QuiverQuant, TradingView, TipRanks and others) report that: [9]
- On December 8, 2025,
- Lamba bought 2,520 LIN shares in the open market,
- At roughly $396–$397 per share,
- For a total value of about $1.0 million,
- Lifting his personal stake to roughly 90,800 shares.
BBAE’s InsiderEdge list also flagged this trade as one of the largest unscheduled insider purchases reported on December 9, meaning it wasn’t just a routine, pre‑planned option exercise. [10]
Why investors care about this:
- Executives sell stock for all kinds of reasons (taxes, diversification, buying a house).
- Buying millions of dollars’ worth of your own stock, near a 52‑week low, is usually a deliberate signal: “I think the market is too pessimistic here.”
It’s not a guarantee of future returns—CEOs get timing wrong like everyone else—but in the short term, this kind of move often supports the “buy‑the‑dip” narrative among long‑term holders.
Short Interest: Caution, Not a Full‑Blown Bear Raid
While the CEO is buying, short sellers have quietly turned up the volume a notch.
A December 9 Benzinga piece on Linde’s short interest highlights: [11]
- 6.62 million LIN shares sold short,
- Roughly 1.4% of the free float,
- A 5.26% increase vs the prior report,
- With days to cover (short interest ÷ average volume) at 2.18 days,
- Versus a peer‑group average short interest of about 4.73% of float.
MarketBeat’s own short‑interest dashboard is broadly consistent, showing about 1.46% of the float shorted and a 2.49‑day short‑interest ratio, with short interest up just over 2% vs the previous month. [12]
In other words:
- There is some incremental bearish positioning,
- But this is not a crowded “short squeeze candidate” or a stock the market is universally betting against.
It looks more like “rising caution in a premium‑valued cyclical” than “the wolves are at the door.”
Big Money Flows: Institutions Buying the Dip, Others Trimming
Fresh 13F‑based ownership stories from December 9 shed light on how large investors have been treating Linde.
Axa S.A. increases its stake
MarketBeat reports that Axa S.A.: [13]
- Raised its Linde position by 23.2% in Q2,
- Buying 122,243 additional shares,
- To reach 648,443 shares,
- Worth about $304 million at the time of the filing,
- Making Linde roughly 0.9% of Axa’s portfolio and its 17th‑largest holding.
SVB Wealth trims exposure
In a separate December 9 note, SVB Wealth LLC disclosed that it: [14]
- Cut its Linde stake by 48% in Q2,
- Selling 2,778 shares,
- Ending the quarter with 3,005 shares worth about $1.41 million.
The dollar amount here is tiny relative to Linde’s ~$182 billion market cap, but it’s a reminder that not everyone is blindly holding through the volatility. [15]
Overall institutional ownership remains very high
MarketBeat’s overview page puts institutional ownership at about 82.8%, with heavyweight investors such as Vanguard, State Street and Capital World Investors among the top holders. [16]
Together with the Axa and Federated Hermes filings, the picture is:
- Large, long‑only institutions are still heavily involved, some using weakness to add,
- Smaller managers and wealth platforms are more willing to trim into volatility.
Fundamentals and Guidance: Strong Business, Softer Europe
Price action is the noisy part. Underneath, Linde still looks like a high‑quality, cash‑generative industrial facing very real cyclical headwinds.
Q3 2025 results: beat on earnings, cautious on Q4
On October 31, 2025, Linde reported third‑quarter 2025 results: [17]
- Adjusted EPS: $4.21
- Up about 7% year‑on‑year,
- Ahead of consensus estimates around $4.18.
- Sales: roughly $8.62 billion,
- About 3% higher than a year earlier.
- Regionally: volumes in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) fell about 3%, even as overall sales grew, and management said they expect that softness to continue in the near term. [18]
Guidance was cautious but not disastrous:
- Q4 2025 EPS guidance:$4.10–$4.20, slightly below Wall Street’s $4.23 consensus at the time. [19]
- Full‑year 2025 EPS guidance:$16.35–$16.45, implying 5–6% earnings growth, in line with the company’s long‑term algorithm. [20]
Analysts now expect about $16.54 in EPS for 2025, rising to roughly $18.02 in 2026, or ~9% earnings growth next year. [21]
Dividend: still growing, not stretched
Linde’s board declared a quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share for Q4 2025, payable December 17, 2025 to shareholders of record as of December 3. That’s: [22]
- $6.00 per share annualized,
- A yield of about 1.5% at a ~$390 share price,
- With a payout ratio near 40%, which MarketBeat flags as comfortably sustainable.
Linde has now raised its dividend for five consecutive years, and payout ratios based on 2026 estimates fall toward the low‑30% range, leaving ample room for future buybacks and investment. [23]
Strategic backdrop: industrial gas moat plus energy transition
Investing.com’s recent SWOT analysis of Linde underlines the structural story: [24]
- Roughly 31–32% global market share in industrial gases,
- High margins (around 30% operating margin in recent results),
- A large, growing project backlog backed by take‑or‑pay contracts,
- Exposure to decarbonization and clean‑energy projects (hydrogen, carbon capture),
- Plus steady demand from sectors like healthcare, electronics and food.
Recent project news—like the start‑up of a new air separation unit (ASU) in Tennessee and funding for green hydrogen capacity in Europe—shows that Linde is still quietly expanding its footprint while the macro cycle grinds along. [25]
The bear case is simple: cyclical industrial demand (especially in Europe) remains weak, FX is a headwind, and there’s a limit to how far pricing and efficiency can offset volume pressure. [26]
Valuation, Ratings and Price Targets Heading Into December 10
This is where the market schizophrenia really shows up.
Valuation: premium to sector, not to the whole market
MarketBeat’s valuation snapshot for Linde shows: [27]
- P/E ratio: ~26x trailing earnings,
- Compared with roughly 23x for the broader basic materials sector,
- And below an estimated 39x for the overall market.
- PEG ratio (P/E ÷ growth): about 3.07,
- Price‑to‑book: around 4.7x.
So Linde trades at a quality premium within its sector, but not at bubble‑style valuations versus the broader market.
Analyst ratings: still firmly in “Buy” territory
Across the Street:
- MarketBeat counts 2 “Strong Buy”, 7 “Buy” and 1 “Hold” rating, with no Sells, giving Linde a consensus rating of “Buy”. [28]
- The consensus 12‑month price target is $509, implying about 30% upside from the $390.38 close. [29]
Fintel’s aggregation of one‑year targets looks similar, with an average target of $514.13 and a range from about $384.81 to $593.25 as of early December. [30]
Investing.com’s roundup of recent analyst actions points to a cluster of $500‑plus targets from firms like UBS, Citi, BMO and Barclays, even after some modest downward revisions in 2025. [31]
And Benzinga’s December 8 oversold‑stocks feature notes that CICC initiated coverage with an “Outperform” rating and a $510 target, again reinforcing that most covering analysts see the current weakness as cyclical rather than existential. [32]
In short: analysts broadly like the business, grumble about the macro, and still expect double‑digit percentage upside from here over a one‑year horizon.
What to Watch Before the Market Opens on December 10, 2025
For traders and investors staring down Wednesday’s open, here are the key threads to track.
1. Price action around the 52‑week low
The $387–$390 range is now the battleground:
- A decisive break below $387.78 (the 52‑week low) with heavy volume would signal that sellers are still firmly in control. [33]
- A bounce from that zone, especially if accompanied by elevated volume and improving breadth in cyclicals, would support the “forced sellers are done for now” narrative.
For short‑term traders, that’s the level that will dominate the pre‑market tape.
2. Market reaction to the CEO’s insider purchase
By the time the bell rings on December 10, news of Sanjiv Lamba’s purchase will be fully digested. Watch for:
- Whether retail flows or options activity pick up in response to “CEO shows confidence” headlines,
- Or whether the market shrugs and stays laser‑focused on macro risk and valuation concerns.
If you see call‑buying or higher‑than‑usual retail volumes early in the session, that’s a hint that the insider signal is resonating. [34]
3. Any follow‑through in short‑interest sentiment
The short‑interest data itself won’t update daily, but behavior in the tape will tell you who’s in charge:
- A quick move higher with little overhead resistance could force some shorts to cover,
- While a grind lower on rising volume would suggest institutions (not just shorts) are still cutting risk.
The starting point, though, is that short interest is modest, not extreme—so don’t expect a GameStop‑style squeeze out of nowhere. [35]
4. Macro backdrop: rates, Europe and industrial demand
Linde is not a meme stock; it’s a cyclical industrial. That means:
- U.S. and European bond yields,
- Expectations for Fed and ECB rate cuts, and
- Data points tied to manufacturing and energy demand
can all move LIN even when there’s no company‑specific headline.
Reuters has already highlighted that weak European volumes were a key reason Linde’s Q4 guidance came in below consensus. Any fresh signs of stabilization or further deterioration in European industry will matter. [36]
5. Sector and theme moves: materials and hydrogen
Linde doesn’t trade in a vacuum:
- Benzinga’s screen named it one of the most oversold materials stocks in early December. [37]
- The Motley Fool’s recent “largest materials companies” piece notes that Linde now sits at the top of the global materials sector by market cap, ahead of giants like BHP. [38]
- Hydrogen‑themed roundups continue to place Linde among the largest “hydrogen economy” plays, thanks to its clean‑energy and carbon‑capture pipeline. [39]
So if materials stocks or hydrogen names move sharply at the open, expect Linde to be dragged along for the ride.
Bottom Line: A High‑Quality Moat Stock in a Rough Patch
Put all of this together and Linde’s setup going into the December 10, 2025 open looks something like this:
- Business quality: extremely high—dominant market share, strong margins, long‑term contracts, and a clear role in the energy transition. [40]
- Cycle & macro: not great—European industrial demand is weak, FX is a drag, and investors are re‑rating cyclicals lower as the global manufacturing cycle cools. [41]
- Valuation: still at a premium to peers, even after the pullback, but more reasonable than it was when the stock was in the mid‑$400s. [42]
- Sentiment: a little wobbly—short interest is rising, some managers are trimming, and the share price has slipped into technical “red zone” territory. [43]
- Counter‑signals: offset by CEO insider buying, big institutions like Axa increasing stakes, and analysts still calling for double‑digit percentage upside over the next year. [44]
For short‑term traders, the $387–$390 band and early‑morning sentiment around that insider purchase will likely dictate the tone of December 10’s session.
For longer‑term investors, the real question isn’t “Where will LIN trade at the open?” so much as “Do the structural advantages and energy‑transition opportunities justify paying a premium multiple for a cyclical stock during a soft patch?”
References
1. stockanalysis.com, 2. stockanalysis.com, 3. stockanalysis.com, 4. www.marketbeat.com, 5. public.com, 6. www.marketbeat.com, 7. www.benzinga.com, 8. www.marketbeat.com, 9. www.gurufocus.com, 10. www.bbae.com, 11. www.benzinga.com, 12. www.marketbeat.com, 13. www.marketbeat.com, 14. www.marketbeat.com, 15. www.marketbeat.com, 16. www.marketbeat.com, 17. www.reuters.com, 18. www.reuters.com, 19. www.reuters.com, 20. www.reuters.com, 21. www.marketbeat.com, 22. www.businesswire.com, 23. www.marketbeat.com, 24. www.investing.com, 25. www.businesswire.com, 26. www.reuters.com, 27. www.marketbeat.com, 28. www.marketbeat.com, 29. www.marketbeat.com, 30. fintel.io, 31. www.investing.com, 32. www.benzinga.com, 33. www.marketbeat.com, 34. www.gurufocus.com, 35. www.benzinga.com, 36. www.reuters.com, 37. www.benzinga.com, 38. www.fool.com, 39. investingnews.com, 40. www.investing.com, 41. www.reuters.com, 42. www.marketbeat.com, 43. www.benzinga.com, 44. www.marketbeat.com
