Czech National Bank Has $5.18 Million Stake in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Czech National Bank grew its stake in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 5.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 190,477 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after buying an additional 10,636 shares during the period. Czech National Bank’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $5,179,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of Halliburton by 17,317.6% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 13,631,188 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $460,462,000 after acquiring an additional 13,552,927 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its holdings in Halliburton by 244.5% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 4,513,560 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $138,025,000 after acquiring an additional 3,203,224 shares during the period. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC bought a new position in shares of Halliburton in the third quarter worth about $55,132,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lifted its position in shares of 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 worth $160,367,000 after purchasing an additional 995,649 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Halliburton by 127.2% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,557,130 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $52,600,000 after purchasing an additional 871,789 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.23% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently commented on HAL. Evercore ISI cut their price target on Halliburton from $43.00 to $35.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Bank of America decreased their price target on shares of Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $35.00 to $33.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Griffin Securities downgraded Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $38.26.

Halliburton Trading Up 2.7 %

Shares of HAL opened at $28.95 on Thursday. 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 has a 12-month low of $25.51 and a 12-month high of $41.56. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.43 billion, a PE ratio of 10.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.91. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $28.96 and its 200-day simple moving average is $30.20.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last posted 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). The company had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a net margin of 11.04% and a return on equity of 28.33%. 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 earned $0.79 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Halliburton will post 3 earnings per share for the current year.

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th were issued a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.35%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 4th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.69%.

Halliburton 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.