Viking Fund Management LLC Decreases Position in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Viking Fund Management LLC decreased its position in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 40.0% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 30,000 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after selling 20,000 shares during the period. Viking Fund Management LLC’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $872,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of HAL. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in Halliburton by 46.0% in 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 purchasing an additional 19,237,784 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised 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 purchasing an additional 13,552,927 shares during the last quarter. LSV Asset Management boosted its stake in shares of Halliburton by 24,954.1% in the 2nd quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 2,730,900 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $92,250,000 after buying an additional 2,720,000 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Halliburton by 2.7% in the first 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, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Halliburton by 20.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 10,087,115 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $340,752,000 after buying an additional 1,681,620 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 85.23% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Van H. Beckwith sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 273,908 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,066,119. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.61% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on HAL shares. Evercore ISI reduced their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $52.00 to $48.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $46.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded shares of Halliburton from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $44.00 to $37.00 in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Citigroup cut their price objective on Halliburton from $50.00 to $45.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 28th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 3rd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Halliburton has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $41.89.

Halliburton Price Performance

Shares of Halliburton stock traded up $0.09 during trading on Friday, reaching $30.82. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,922,029 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,890,814. The company has a market capitalization of $27.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.88. Halliburton has a 12-month low of $27.52 and a 12-month high of $43.85. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $30.17 and a 200-day moving average price of $34.05. The company has a quick ratio of 1.54, a current ratio of 2.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, July 19th. The oilfield services company reported $0.80 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.80. The firm had revenue of $5.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.95 billion. Halliburton had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 29.97%. The firm’s revenue was up .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.77 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Halliburton will post 3.13 EPS for the current year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 4th were paid a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, September 4th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.21%. Halliburton’s payout ratio is currently 22.59%.

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.