Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Stock Dropped to “Hold” by Wall Street Zen

by · The Cerbat Gem

Wall Street Zen cut shares of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL – Free Report) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Saturday,Wall Street Zen reports.

Other research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Evercore restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $43.00 price target on shares of Halliburton in a research note on Wednesday, July 22nd. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on Halliburton from $48.00 to $47.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Freedom Capital upgraded shares of Halliburton from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $41.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Finally, Wolfe Research started coverage on Halliburton in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. They issued a “peer perform” rating on the stock. Eighteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $43.24.

Get Our Latest Report on Halliburton

Halliburton Price Performance

Shares of NYSE HAL opened at $31.83 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $34.06 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $36.50. Halliburton has a fifty-two week low of $21.46 and a fifty-two week high of $43.59. The company has a market capitalization of $26.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.66, a P/E/G ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 1.50 and a current ratio of 2.02.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 21st. The oilfield services company reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by $0.01. Halliburton had a return on equity of 18.71% and a net margin of 7.16%.The firm had revenue of $5.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.50 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.55 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Halliburton will post 2.34 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 23rd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 2nd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, September 2nd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.1%. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is 35.60%.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO Jeffrey Slocum sold 52,572 shares of Halliburton stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $35.09, for a total value of $1,844,751.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 118,730 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,166,235.70. The trade was a 30.69% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. 0.57% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Halliburton

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of HAL. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in Halliburton during the 2nd quarter valued at about $2,812,327,000. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its stake in Halliburton by 21.1% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 110,220,971 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $3,114,848,000 after purchasing an additional 19,190,520 shares during the last quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC purchased a new position in shares of Halliburton during the second quarter valued at approximately $345,941,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new position in shares of Halliburton during the second quarter valued at approximately $337,486,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE bought a new position in shares of Halliburton during the second quarter valued at approximately $196,444,000. 85.23% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Halliburton

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Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) is a global provider of products and services for the energy industry. The company supports the exploration, development, and production of oil and natural gas through technologies and services used throughout the life cycle of a well.

Halliburton operates through two primary business segments: Completion and Production, and Drilling and Evaluation. Its offerings include cementing, stimulation, well completion, production enhancement, drilling services, drilling fluids, well testing, wireline and perforating services, formation evaluation, and project management.

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