Morgan Stanley Cuts Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Price Target to $34.00

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) had its price target cut by Morgan Stanley from $35.00 to $34.00 in a report released on Monday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the oilfield services company’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also issued reports on HAL. Royal Bank of Canada lowered Halliburton from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $44.00 to $37.00 in a report on Friday, September 13th. Raymond James cut their target price on Halliburton from $41.00 to $37.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, November 8th. Benchmark restated a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 price objective on shares of Halliburton in a report on Friday, November 8th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $47.00 to $46.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of Halliburton from $45.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $40.74.

Halliburton Trading Up 2.3 %

Shares of HAL stock opened at $31.18 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $27.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.86, a PEG ratio of 3.64 and a beta of 1.89. Halliburton has a fifty-two week low of $27.26 and a fifty-two week high of $41.56. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.29 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $32.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 1.62 and a current ratio of 2.21.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last posted its quarterly 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). Halliburton had a return on equity of 28.33% and a net margin of 11.04%. The company had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.83 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.79 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 3.02 earnings per share for the current year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th will be given a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.18%. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.69%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Halliburton

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in Halliburton by 46.0% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 61,090,055 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $2,408,171,000 after purchasing an additional 19,237,784 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in Halliburton by 17,317.6% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 13,631,188 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $460,462,000 after buying an additional 13,552,927 shares during the period. LSV Asset Management grew its stake in Halliburton by 24,954.1% in the 2nd quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 2,730,900 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $92,250,000 after buying an additional 2,720,000 shares in the last quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC bought a new stake in Halliburton during the 3rd quarter valued at $55,132,000. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of Halliburton by 20.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 10,087,115 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $340,752,000 after acquiring an additional 1,681,620 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.