Halliburton Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:HAL)

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Monday. Traders bought 29,467 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 56% compared to the typical volume of 18,840 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently commented on HAL. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $40.00 price objective on shares of Halliburton in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Halliburton from $45.00 to $42.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Susquehanna decreased their price objective on Halliburton from $42.00 to $40.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 8th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $38.95.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Halliburton

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 3,757.1% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 37,067 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $1,251,000 after purchasing an additional 36,106 shares in the last quarter. Choreo LLC purchased a new position in shares of Halliburton in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $450,000. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. grew its position in Halliburton by 68.6% in the 2nd quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 9,662 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $326,000 after buying an additional 3,930 shares during the last quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. increased its stake in shares of Halliburton by 41.7% during the second quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. now owns 121,853 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $4,116,000 after acquiring an additional 35,889 shares during the period. Finally, Meeder Advisory Services Inc. increased its position in Halliburton by 27.5% during the 2nd quarter. Meeder Advisory Services Inc. now owns 22,656 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $765,000 after purchasing an additional 4,891 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.23% of the company’s stock.

Halliburton Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:HAL opened at $28.20 on Wednesday. Halliburton has a 1 year low of $25.51 and a 1 year high of $41.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 2.21 and a quick ratio of 1.62. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $28.96 and its 200-day moving average price is $30.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.77 billion, a PE ratio of 9.83, a P/E/G ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.91.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last posted its quarterly 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). Halliburton had a net margin of 11.04% and a return on equity of 28.33%. The company had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.83 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.79 earnings per share. Halliburton’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Halliburton will post 3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th were paid a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.41%. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.69%.

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.