Ballast Inc. Acquires 9,943 Shares of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Ballast Inc. boosted its holdings in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 65.8% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 25,045 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after purchasing an additional 9,943 shares during the period. Ballast Inc.’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $681,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 17,317.6% during the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 13,631,188 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $460,462,000 after acquiring an additional 13,552,927 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in Halliburton by 244.5% during the 3rd 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 last quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC acquired a new position in Halliburton in the third quarter valued at about $55,132,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans grew its stake in Halliburton by 22.0% during the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 5,520,383 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $160,367,000 after buying an additional 995,649 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 127.2% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,557,130 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $52,600,000 after buying an additional 871,789 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 85.23% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have commented on HAL shares. UBS Group lowered Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $36.00 to $34.00 in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Benchmark reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 price target on shares of Halliburton in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Raymond James cut shares of Halliburton from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $45.00 to $42.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 11th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $38.26.

Halliburton Stock Up 2.3 %

Shares of HAL stock opened at $29.96 on Friday. Halliburton has a 12-month low of $25.51 and a 12-month high of $41.56. The company has a quick ratio of 1.62, a current ratio of 2.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $28.94 and a 200-day moving average of $30.16. The company has a market capitalization of $26.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.44, a P/E/G ratio of 3.36 and a beta of 1.91.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last released its earnings results 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). The company had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a net margin of 11.04% and a return on equity of 28.33%. Halliburton’s revenue was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.79 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Halliburton will post 2.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 26th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.27%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 4th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is 23.69%.

Halliburton 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.