Anchor Capital Advisors LLC Buys 75,151 Shares of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Anchor Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 15.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 567,259 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after buying an additional 75,151 shares during the quarter. Anchor Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $15,424,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Halliburton by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,630,361 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $597,234,000 after buying an additional 172,505 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 10.4% in the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 18,530,937 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $503,856,000 after purchasing an additional 1,748,763 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased 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 worth $166,815,000 after purchasing an additional 115,504 shares during the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised 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 valued at $160,367,000 after purchasing an additional 995,649 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its position in Halliburton by 31.3% during the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,100,693 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $138,688,000 after purchasing an additional 1,214,586 shares during the last quarter. 85.23% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Halliburton

In other Halliburton news, CFO Eric Carre sold 141,206 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.13, for a total transaction of $3,689,712.78. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 127,101 shares in the company, valued at $3,321,149.13. This represents a 52.63 % decrease in their position. The sale 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 corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on HAL. Raymond James downgraded shares of Halliburton from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Halliburton from $42.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Benchmark lowered their price objective on Halliburton from $40.00 to $35.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on Halliburton from $39.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on Halliburton from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Halliburton presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $37.42.

Halliburton Price Performance

Shares of HAL stock opened at $26.05 on Friday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $27.02 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $28.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 2.05 and a quick ratio of 1.54. Halliburton has a one year low of $25.16 and a one year high of $41.56. The company has a market capitalization of $22.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 1.89.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 5th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.61%. Halliburton’s payout ratio is currently 24.03%.

Halliburton Company 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.