Wedmont Private Capital Cuts Holdings in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Wedmont Private Capital lessened its position in shares of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 18.0% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 12,933 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after selling 2,832 shares during the quarter. Wedmont Private Capital’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $349,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in HAL. Federated Hermes Inc. raised its stake in shares of Halliburton by 7.8% in the 2nd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 39,719 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $1,342,000 after acquiring an additional 2,885 shares during the period. Parallel Advisors LLC raised its position in Halliburton by 13.4% in the second quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 9,300 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $314,000 after purchasing an additional 1,102 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Halliburton by 30.2% during the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 737,569 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $24,915,000 after purchasing an additional 171,111 shares in the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Halliburton by 9.1% in the second quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 14,183 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $479,000 after buying an additional 1,181 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Halliburton by 7.2% in the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 89,551 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $2,972,000 after buying an additional 5,997 shares in the last quarter. 85.23% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have weighed in on HAL. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Halliburton from $45.00 to $42.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 11th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 price target on shares of Halliburton in a report on Friday, November 8th. UBS Group lowered shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $36.00 to $34.00 in a report on Monday, December 9th. Piper Sandler started coverage on Halliburton in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $36.00 target price for the company. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $38.26.

Halliburton Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE HAL opened at $29.28 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.62, a current ratio of 2.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $28.93 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $30.19. Halliburton has a 52-week low of $25.51 and a 52-week high of $41.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.20, a P/E/G ratio of 3.36 and a beta of 1.91.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last announced 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). The company had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a return on equity of 28.33% and a net margin of 11.04%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.79 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 2.99 earnings per share for the current 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 given a dividend of $0.17 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.32%. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.69%.

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.