Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Releases Earnings Results

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL - Get Free Report) posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday. The oilfield services company reported $0.60 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.60, Zacks reports. The company had revenue of $5.42 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.28 billion. Halliburton had a return on equity of 26.03% and a net margin of 10.90%.

Halliburton Trading Down 1.7 %

NYSE HAL traded down $0.35 during trading on Friday, hitting $20.86. The stock had a trading volume of 11,003,499 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,934,186. The company has a market capitalization of $17.98 billion, a PE ratio of 7.37, a PEG ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 1.45. Halliburton has a twelve month low of $18.72 and a twelve month high of $38.89. The company has a quick ratio of 1.54, a current ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $23.74 and a 200 day moving average price of $26.80.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 5th were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.26%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 5th. Halliburton's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 28.45%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently commented on the company. UBS Group reduced their price objective on Halliburton from $23.00 to $22.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $37.00 to $32.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $35.00 to $33.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Susquehanna dropped their price target on Halliburton from $32.00 to $30.00 and set a "positive" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on Halliburton from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $34.68.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Eric Carre sold 141,206 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.13, for a total transaction of $3,689,712.78. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 127,101 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,321,149.13. This represents a 52.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP Timothy Mckeon sold 10,497 shares of Halliburton stock in a transaction on Friday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.60, for a total value of $258,226.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 77,784 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,913,486.40. This trade represents a 11.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 206,782 shares of company stock valued at $5,321,170. 0.61% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Halliburton

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.