Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Receives $39.58 Average PT from Analysts

Shares of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) have received a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty research firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $38.95.

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on HAL. Raymond James downgraded Halliburton from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Monday. Barclays restated an “equal weight” rating and set a $33.00 price objective (down previously from $43.00) on shares of Halliburton in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $40.00 target price on shares of Halliburton in a research report on Friday, November 8th. UBS Group downgraded shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $36.00 to $34.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Griffin Securities lowered shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Halliburton by 0.8% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,630,361 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $597,234,000 after buying an additional 172,505 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 23.1% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 16,782,174 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $487,522,000 after acquiring an additional 3,150,986 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Halliburton by 20.0% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 10,087,115 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $340,752,000 after purchasing an additional 1,681,620 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake in Halliburton by 2.1% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,742,352 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $166,815,000 after purchasing an additional 115,504 shares during the period. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its stake in Halliburton by 22.0% during the 3rd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 5,520,383 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $160,367,000 after purchasing an additional 995,649 shares during the period. 85.23% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Halliburton Stock Down 2.8 %

Shares of NYSE:HAL opened at $26.97 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $23.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.91. The company has a 50 day moving average of $29.01 and a two-hundred day moving average of $30.41. Halliburton has a 52-week low of $25.51 and a 52-week high of $41.56. The company has a quick ratio of 1.62, a current ratio of 2.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by ($0.02). Halliburton had a net margin of 11.04% and a return on equity of 28.33%. The firm had revenue of $5.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.83 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.79 earnings per share. Halliburton’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 26th. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 4th were issued a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 4th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.69%.

About Halliburton

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.