Short Interest in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Expands By 5.2%

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in November. As of November 30th, there was short interest totalling 23,200,000 shares, a growth of 5.2% from the November 15th total of 22,060,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 9,790,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.4 days. Currently, 2.7% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Institutional Trading of Halliburton

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of HAL. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in 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 worth $460,462,000 after acquiring an additional 13,552,927 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 244.5% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 4,513,560 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $138,025,000 after purchasing an additional 3,203,224 shares during the period. LSV Asset Management boosted its position 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 worth $92,250,000 after purchasing an additional 2,720,000 shares in the last quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Halliburton in the 3rd quarter valued at about $55,132,000. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 1,681,620 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.23% of the company’s stock.

Halliburton Price Performance

Shares of HAL opened at $27.20 on Wednesday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $29.63 and a 200-day moving average of $31.16. 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 company has a market capitalization of $23.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.61 and a beta of 1.90. Halliburton has a 1 year low of $27.03 and a 1 year high of $41.56.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.75 by ($0.02). Halliburton had a return on equity of 28.33% and a net margin of 11.04%. The firm had revenue of $5.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.83 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.79 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Halliburton will post 3 earnings per share for the current year.

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th will be paid a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.50%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 4th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is 23.69%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have weighed in on HAL. Royal Bank of Canada cut shares of Halliburton from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $44.00 to $37.00 in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on shares of Halliburton from $45.00 to $42.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 11th. Susquehanna reduced their price target on Halliburton from $42.00 to $40.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on Halliburton from $39.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Raymond James cut their target price on Halliburton from $41.00 to $37.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $40.32.

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.