Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Short Interest Down 6.2% in October

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) saw a large decrease in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 21,820,000 shares, a decrease of 6.2% from the October 15th total of 23,270,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 9,250,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.4 days. Approximately 2.5% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on HAL. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on shares of Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on Halliburton from $46.00 to $39.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 25th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Halliburton from $41.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Bank of America reduced their target price on Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $40.74.

Halliburton Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of NYSE:HAL opened at $30.47 on Wednesday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $29.22 and its 200 day simple moving average is $32.08. Halliburton has a 1 year low of $27.26 and a 1 year high of $41.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 2.21 and a quick ratio of 1.62. The company has a market capitalization of $26.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.62, a P/E/G ratio of 3.64 and a beta of 1.89.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.75 by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $5.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a return on equity of 28.33% and a net margin of 11.04%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.79 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Halliburton will post 3.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th will be given a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.23%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 4th. Halliburton’s payout ratio is presently 23.69%.

Institutional Trading of Halliburton

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Sunbelt Securities Inc. raised its position in Halliburton by 108.2% during the third quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 6,187 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $180,000 after purchasing an additional 3,215 shares in the last quarter. Neo Ivy Capital Management acquired a new position in shares of Halliburton during the 3rd quarter worth $724,000. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Halliburton by 13.5% during the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 13,954 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $408,000 after buying an additional 1,658 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Halliburton by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,630,361 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $597,234,000 after buying an additional 172,505 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MidWestOne Financial Group Inc. grew its position in Halliburton by 4.4% in the third quarter. MidWestOne Financial Group Inc. now owns 8,610 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $250,000 after acquiring an additional 359 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 85.23% 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.