Wells Fargo & Company Cuts Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Price Target to $34.00

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) had its price objective cut by Wells Fargo & Company from $39.00 to $34.00 in a report issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the oilfield services company’s stock.

HAL has been the topic of a number of other reports. Dbs Bank assumed coverage on Halliburton in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $45.00 target price for the company. Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Raymond James lowered their target price on shares of Halliburton from $41.00 to $37.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Benchmark reissued a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 target price on shares of Halliburton in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada downgraded Halliburton from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $44.00 to $37.00 in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Halliburton has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $39.58.

Halliburton Price Performance

NYSE HAL opened at $25.77 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $29.45 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $31.08. Halliburton has a 12-month low of $25.66 and a 12-month high of $41.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.64 billion, a PE ratio of 8.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.61 and a beta of 1.90. 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 (NYSE:HAL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by ($0.02). Halliburton had a return on equity of 28.33% and a net margin of 11.04%. The business had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.83 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.79 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Halliburton will post 3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 4th. Halliburton’s payout ratio is 23.69%.

Institutional Trading of Halliburton

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Halliburton by 0.8% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,630,361 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $597,234,000 after purchasing an additional 172,505 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted 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 buying an additional 3,150,986 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake 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 buying an additional 1,681,620 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in Halliburton by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 7,342,857 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $248,042,000 after buying an additional 83,894 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its position in Halliburton by 2.1% in the third 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 valued at $166,815,000 after acquiring an additional 115,504 shares during the period. Institutional investors 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.