Qsemble Capital Management LP Acquires Shares of 168,999 Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Qsemble Capital Management LP bought a new stake in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 168,999 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,909,000. Halliburton comprises approximately 0.9% of Qsemble Capital Management LP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 16th largest position.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its stake in shares of Halliburton by 1.4% in the 3rd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 902,208 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $25,848,000 after buying an additional 12,810 shares during the last quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. grew its stake in Halliburton by 28.8% in the 3rd quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 1,759 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $51,000 after purchasing an additional 393 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Halliburton by 20.0% during the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 508,889 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock valued at $14,783,000 after purchasing an additional 84,796 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Halliburton by 11.6% during the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 108,054 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $3,139,000 after purchasing an additional 11,224 shares during the period. Finally, Larson Financial Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Halliburton by 6.5% in the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 61,686 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $1,792,000 after buying an additional 3,738 shares during the last quarter. 85.23% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on HAL. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on Halliburton from $45.00 to $42.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered Halliburton from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $44.00 to $37.00 in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Bank of America decreased their target price on Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 14th. UBS Group dropped their price target on Halliburton from $41.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $40.74.

Halliburton Trading Up 0.2 %

HAL stock traded up $0.05 on Monday, reaching $31.99. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,022,477 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,093,065. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 1.62 and a current ratio of 2.21. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $29.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $31.97. The firm has a market cap of $28.10 billion, a PE ratio of 11.13, a PEG ratio of 3.93 and a beta of 1.89. Halliburton has a 12-month low of $27.26 and a 12-month 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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by ($0.02). Halliburton had a return on equity of 28.33% and a net margin of 11.04%. The company had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.83 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.79 earnings per share. Halliburton’s quarterly revenue was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Halliburton will post 3.01 EPS for the current year.

Halliburton Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 26th. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 4th will be paid a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.13%. Halliburton’s payout ratio is 23.69%.

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.