Dodge & Cox Cuts Stock Holdings in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Dodge & Cox lessened its holdings in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 0.6% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 80,660 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after selling 500 shares during the quarter. Dodge & Cox’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $2,193,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Guggenheim Capital LLC boosted its position in Halliburton by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 67,362 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $1,832,000 after acquiring an additional 1,242 shares in the last quarter. Canada Post Corp Registered Pension Plan bought a new stake in Halliburton during the fourth quarter valued at about $227,000. Sanders Capital LLC grew its stake in Halliburton by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 24,372,694 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $662,694,000 after purchasing an additional 375,054 shares during the last quarter. Sagespring Wealth Partners LLC bought a new position in Halliburton in the fourth quarter worth about $276,000. Finally, Crux Wealth Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of Halliburton during the fourth quarter valued at about $344,000. 85.23% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

HAL has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Evercore ISI reduced their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $43.00 to $35.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on Halliburton from $39.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Halliburton from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $34.00 target price on shares of Halliburton in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, Barclays lowered their price target on Halliburton from $30.00 to $29.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 31st. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $36.95.

Halliburton Stock Up 0.1 %

NYSE:HAL opened at $21.26 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 2.05 and a quick ratio of 1.54. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $24.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $27.27. Halliburton has a 1-year low of $18.72 and a 1-year high of $39.37. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.51, a PEG ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 1.45.

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.20%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, March 5th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is currently 24.03%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Halliburton

In related news, VP Timothy Mckeon sold 10,497 shares of Halliburton stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $24.60, for a total transaction of $258,226.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 77,784 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,913,486.40. This trade represents a 11.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Eric Carre sold 141,206 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.13, for a total value of $3,689,712.78. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 127,101 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,321,149.13. The trade was a 52.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 206,782 shares of company stock worth $5,321,170. Insiders own 0.61% of the company’s stock.

Halliburton Company Profile

Halliburton Company provides products and services to the energy industry worldwide. It operates through two segments, Completion and Production, and Drilling and Evaluation. The Completion and Production segment offers production enhancement services that include stimulation and sand control services; cementing services, such as well bonding and casing, and casing equipment; and completion tools that offer downhole solutions and services, including well completion products and services, intelligent well completions, and service tools, as well as liner hanger, sand control, and multilateral systems.