Barclays Reiterates Equal Weight Rating for Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Barclays reiterated their equal weight rating on shares of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL - Free Report) in a research report report published on Wednesday, MarketBeat reports. Barclays currently has a $33.00 price target on the oilfield services company's stock, down from their prior price target of $43.00.

A number of other analysts also recently commented on HAL. Susquehanna dropped their price target 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. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Benchmark reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $40.00 target price on shares of Halliburton in a report on Friday, November 8th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $47.00 to $46.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped 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. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $39.79.

Halliburton Stock Performance

Shares of HAL stock traded down $1.04 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $26.15. The stock had a trading volume of 11,450,134 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,168,000. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.97 billion, a PE ratio of 9.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.61 and a beta of 1.90. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $29.55 and a 200-day simple moving average of $31.12. Halliburton has a twelve month low of $26.11 and a twelve month 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.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL - Get Free Report) 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 business had revenue of $5.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.83 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.79 EPS. The business's quarterly revenue was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 3 earnings per share for the current year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 26th. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.60%. Halliburton's dividend payout ratio is 23.69%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Halliburton

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Halliburton by 17,317.6% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 13,631,188 shares of the oilfield services company's stock worth $460,462,000 after acquiring an additional 13,552,927 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its position 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 during the period. LSV Asset Management grew its stake in shares of Halliburton by 24,954.1% in the second quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 2,730,900 shares of the oilfield services company's stock worth $92,250,000 after acquiring an additional 2,720,000 shares during the last quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC bought a new position in Halliburton during the third quarter worth $55,132,000. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings 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 period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.23% of the company's stock.

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.