Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Price Target Cut to $35.00 by Analysts at Benchmark

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) had its price target trimmed by Benchmark from $40.00 to $35.00 in a research report report published on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the oilfield services company’s stock.

A number of other analysts also recently issued reports on HAL. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on Halliburton from $35.00 to $33.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on shares of Halliburton from $42.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday. Evercore ISI decreased their price objective on Halliburton from $43.00 to $35.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $37.42.

Halliburton Price Performance

Shares of NYSE HAL opened at $27.83 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.62, a current ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $28.81 and its 200 day moving average price is $29.99. Halliburton has a 52 week low of $25.51 and a 52 week high of $41.56. The firm has a market cap of $24.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.83, a P/E/G ratio of 3.58 and a beta of 1.91.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 earnings per share 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 analysts’ expectations of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a net margin of 10.90% and a return on equity of 26.03%. Halliburton’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.79 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Halliburton will post 2.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 26th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.44%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 4th. Halliburton’s payout ratio is 24.03%.

Institutional Trading of Halliburton

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Cary Street Partners Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Halliburton by 56.5% during the third quarter. Cary Street Partners Asset Management LLC now owns 157,085 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $4,563,000 after purchasing an additional 56,707 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp grew its stake in Halliburton by 105.2% during the second quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 186,961 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $6,316,000 after buying an additional 95,864 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its holdings 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 in the last quarter. Quest Partners LLC lifted its stake in Halliburton by 2,418.9% in the 3rd quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 78,387 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $2,277,000 after purchasing an additional 75,275 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Semanteon Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of Halliburton during the third quarter valued at about $1,181,000. 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.