Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Position Reduced by Quest Partners LLC

Quest Partners LLC decreased its position in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 73.1% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 3,112 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after selling 8,450 shares during the period. Quest Partners LLC’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $105,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in HAL. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 19,237,784 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Halliburton during the fourth quarter valued at $400,070,000. LSV Asset Management grew its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 24,954.1% during 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 acquiring an additional 2,720,000 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Halliburton by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 100,274,105 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $3,952,805,000 after purchasing an additional 2,618,740 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Halliburton by 116.9% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,483,230 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $97,889,000 after buying an additional 1,338,371 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.23% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

HAL has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut 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. Royal Bank of Canada lowered shares of Halliburton from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $44.00 to $37.00 in a research report on Friday. Barclays decreased their target price on Halliburton from $54.00 to $48.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Johnson Rice raised Halliburton to a “moderate buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Citigroup decreased their price objective on Halliburton from $50.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, June 28th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $43.88.

Halliburton Stock Performance

NYSE HAL opened at $28.41 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $25.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.83, a PEG ratio of 0.95 and a beta of 1.89. 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 has a 1-year low of $27.52 and a 1-year high of $43.85. The company has a 50 day moving average of $31.80 and a 200-day moving average of $35.00.

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

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 25th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.39%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 4th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.53%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Halliburton

In other news, EVP Van H. Beckwith sold 10,000 shares of the 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 directly owns 273,908 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,066,119. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.61% of the company’s stock.

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.