Halliburton Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:HAL)

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) saw unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Traders bought 27,627 put options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 39% compared to the average volume of 19,918 put options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on Halliburton from $35.00 to $33.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Evercore ISI lowered their price target on shares of Halliburton from $43.00 to $35.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 15th. Citigroup lowered their price target on shares of Halliburton from $33.00 to $31.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 24th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on shares of Halliburton from $37.00 to $32.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Halliburton from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Eight investment 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 company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $34.68.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Halliburton news, CFO Eric Carre sold 51,179 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $25.00, for a total transaction of $1,279,475.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 127,101 shares in the company, valued at $3,177,525. This represents a 28.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Margaret Katherine Banks sold 3,900 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.04, for a total transaction of $93,756.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 10,551 shares in the company, valued at $253,646.04. This represents a 26.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 206,782 shares of company stock valued at $5,321,170 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.61% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Mascagni Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Halliburton in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Horrell Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Halliburton in the 4th quarter valued at about $33,000. Sierra Ocean LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Halliburton during the 4th quarter worth about $36,000. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Halliburton by 87.4% during the 1st quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,407 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 656 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Halliburton during the 4th quarter worth about $38,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 85.23% of the company’s stock.

Halliburton Stock Performance

Shares of Halliburton stock opened at $19.91 on Friday. Halliburton has a 52 week low of $18.72 and a 52 week high of $38.35. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $23.22 and its 200-day simple moving average is $26.52. The firm has a market cap of $17.16 billion, a PE ratio of 7.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.54, a current ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 22nd. The oilfield services company reported $0.60 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.60. The firm had revenue of $5.42 billion for 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%. Equities analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 2.64 earnings per share for the current year.

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 5th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 28.45%.

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.