Barclays Cuts Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Price Target to $30.00

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) had its price objective lowered by Barclays from $32.00 to $30.00 in a report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an equal weight rating on the oilfield services company’s stock.

A number of other brokerages have also recently commented on HAL. UBS Group cut shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price target for the company from $36.00 to $34.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on Halliburton from $35.00 to $33.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on Halliburton from $45.00 to $42.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 11th. Benchmark restated a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 price target on shares of Halliburton in a report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $37.42.

Halliburton Trading Down 0.5 %

Shares of 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 company has a current ratio of 2.05, a quick ratio of 1.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market cap of $24.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.83, a PEG ratio of 3.58 and a beta of 1.91. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $28.81 and a 200-day moving average of $29.99.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last released its quarterly 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). Halliburton had a return on equity of 26.03% and a net margin of 10.90%. The firm had revenue of $5.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.83 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.79 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 2.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

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 dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.44%. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.03%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Halliburton

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of HAL. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 172,505 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its stake in Halliburton by 10.4% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 18,530,937 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $503,856,000 after buying an additional 1,748,763 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in shares of 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 worth $166,815,000 after buying an additional 115,504 shares in the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its stake in shares of Halliburton by 22.0% in 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 buying an additional 995,649 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 244.5% in 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 in the last quarter. 85.23% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.