Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Earns “Sector Perform” Rating from Royal Bank of Canada

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)‘s stock had its “sector perform” rating reiterated by analysts at Royal Bank of Canada in a research report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $34.00 price objective on the oilfield services company’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price target suggests a potential upside of 22.19% from the stock’s previous close.

HAL has been the topic of a number of other reports. Raymond James downgraded Halliburton from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on Halliburton from $42.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on shares of Halliburton from $39.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Susquehanna cut their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $42.00 to $40.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, UBS Group cut shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $36.00 to $34.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Halliburton has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $37.42.

Halliburton Stock Performance

HAL stock opened at $27.83 on Thursday. Halliburton has a 1-year low of $25.51 and a 1-year high of $41.56. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $28.85 and a 200 day moving average price of $30.03. The company has a market capitalization of $24.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.83, a PEG ratio of 3.58 and a beta of 1.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 2.05 and a quick ratio of 1.62.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.75 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a net margin of 10.90% and a return on equity of 26.03%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.79 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 2.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Halliburton

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Valley National Advisers Inc. boosted its holdings in Halliburton by 2.1% in the fourth quarter. Valley National Advisers Inc. now owns 64,304 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $1,747,000 after purchasing an additional 1,345 shares during the last quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Halliburton in the fourth quarter worth about $143,000. Comprehensive Financial Consultants Institutional Inc. grew its holdings in Halliburton by 6.1% during the fourth quarter. Comprehensive Financial Consultants Institutional Inc. now owns 61,644 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $1,676,000 after acquiring an additional 3,559 shares during the period. Caprock Group LLC raised its position in Halliburton by 3.6% during the fourth quarter. Caprock Group LLC now owns 70,229 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $1,910,000 after acquiring an additional 2,464 shares in the last quarter. Finally, New Wave Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Halliburton in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $375,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.