Stifel Nicolaus Cuts Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Price Target to $37.00

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) had its price objective reduced by Stifel Nicolaus from $42.00 to $37.00 in a research report report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a buy rating on the oilfield services company’s stock.

HAL has been the subject of several other reports. Benchmark reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $40.00 target price on shares of Halliburton in a report on Friday, November 8th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Halliburton from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Evercore ISI reduced their price target on shares of Halliburton from $43.00 to $35.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 15th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective 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. Finally, Raymond James lowered Halliburton from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Halliburton currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $37.42.

Halliburton Trading Down 1.5 %

HAL stock opened at $28.05 on Thursday. Halliburton has a 12 month low of $25.51 and a 12 month high of $41.56. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $28.89 and its 200 day moving average is $30.04. The company has a market capitalization of $24.64 billion, a PE ratio of 9.77, a P/E/G ratio of 3.72 and a beta of 1.91. 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) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $5.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a return on equity of 28.33% and a net margin of 11.04%. The business’s revenue was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.79 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Halliburton will post 2.99 EPS for the current year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 26th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th were paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.42%. Halliburton’s payout ratio is 23.69%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Halliburton

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in HAL. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its position 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 purchasing an additional 3,203,224 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Halliburton by 23.1% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 16,782,174 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $487,522,000 after purchasing an additional 3,150,986 shares during the period. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Halliburton in the 3rd quarter valued at $55,132,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its position in 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 valued at $160,367,000 after buying an additional 995,649 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC grew 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 worth $52,600,000 after purchasing an additional 871,789 shares in the last quarter. 85.23% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.