Wall Street analysts are saying it’s a great time to invest in two of our favorite industrial-focused stocks: Honeywell and Linde . Morgan Stanley on Monday raised its price target and kept its buy-equivalent rating on industrial gas and engineering firm Linde. The analysts said the chemicals industry is slowly coming out of a trough “but at a very modest slope.” Meanwhile, Bank of America late Friday cut its price target but maintained its buy rating on Honeywell after last week’s announced purchase for $4.95 billion of Carrier ‘s security business, which makes electronic locks, video monitoring apps, and fire alarms. Jim Cramer said he’s even more bullish on industrial conglomerate Honeywell, which focuses on safety and productivity solutions as well as aerospace, building automation, and sustainability. As for Linde, Jim has long touted the stock as the Club’s favorite way to invest in the global transition to clean energy. Here’s a breakdown of the new Wall Street research and our thoughts, too. LIN YTD mountain Linde (LIN) year-to-date performance Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Linde to $450 per share from $420, which represents more than 10% upside to Monday afternoon’s levels around $406. The analysts made their call as part of a barbell strategy regarding the chemical industry: what they call “grinders/compounders” like a Linde paired with “sentiment inflection plays” like LyondellBasell . They describe the approach as “less absolute percentage upside on the one hand, but less downside risk and likely less volatility on the other.” We also view Linde as an earnings compounder thanks to its dependable business model. Each year, the company builds on earnings through strong pricing power and productivity-driven cost improvements. Profit gains from these two initiatives are high Linde has been able to grow earnings by a double-digit clip this year without any help from volumes. Linde’s third quarter report marked the 19th consecutive time the…
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