Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) PT Lowered to $35.00 at Morgan Stanley

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) had its target price lowered by Morgan Stanley from $45.00 to $35.00 in a research note published on Monday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an overweight rating on the oilfield services company’s stock.

HAL has been the topic of several other reports. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of Halliburton from $54.00 to $48.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada cut shares of Halliburton from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $44.00 to $37.00 in a research note on Friday, September 13th. TD Cowen decreased their target price on shares of Halliburton from $47.00 to $45.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Benchmark reissued a buy rating and issued a $42.00 target price on shares of Halliburton in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on shares of Halliburton from $50.00 to $47.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 29th. Three 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 MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $43.17.

Halliburton Price Performance

Shares of NYSE HAL opened at $29.10 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $25.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.07, a PEG ratio of 0.95 and a beta of 1.89. Halliburton has a 52 week low of $27.52 and a 52 week high of $43.85. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $31.66 and its 200 day moving average price is $34.92. The company has a current ratio of 2.13, a quick ratio of 1.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 19th. The oilfield services company reported $0.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.80. Halliburton had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 29.97%. The company had revenue of $5.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.95 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.77 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 3.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 4th will be issued a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 4th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.34%. Halliburton’s payout ratio is 23.53%.

Insider Activity at Halliburton

In other news, EVP Van H. Beckwith sold 10,000 shares of Halliburton stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.75, for a total transaction of $367,500.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 273,908 shares in the company, valued at $10,066,119. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.61% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Halliburton

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Rise Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Halliburton during the first quarter valued at approximately $26,000. IAG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Halliburton in the first quarter worth $30,000. Johnson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Halliburton in the fourth quarter worth $33,000. Bruce G. Allen Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of Halliburton by 274.9% in the second quarter. Bruce G. Allen Investments LLC now owns 1,121 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $38,000 after buying an additional 822 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Assetmark Inc. increased its stake in shares of Halliburton by 286.2% in the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 1,201 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $43,000 after buying an additional 890 shares during 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.