Texas Permanent School Fund Corp Decreases Stock Holdings in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL)

Texas Permanent School Fund Corp cut its holdings in Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) by 0.4% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 183,992 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock after selling 808 shares during the period. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp’s holdings in Halliburton were worth $7,253,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Capital World Investors lifted its holdings in Halliburton by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 121,551,234 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $4,394,077,000 after purchasing an additional 479,877 shares in the last quarter. Sanders Capital LLC increased its holdings in Halliburton by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 23,538,783 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $850,927,000 after purchasing an additional 782,093 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Halliburton in the 4th quarter valued at about $400,070,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Halliburton by 24.9% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 7,878,811 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $284,822,000 after purchasing an additional 1,568,485 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of Halliburton by 18.3% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 6,217,704 shares of the oilfield services company’s stock worth $224,770,000 after buying an additional 962,547 shares during the last quarter. 85.23% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $45.00 price objective on shares of Halliburton in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Halliburton from $45.00 to $50.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 23rd. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Halliburton from $50.00 to $49.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 29th. UBS Group increased their target price on Halliburton from $46.00 to $51.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 3rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Halliburton currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $48.75.

Halliburton Trading Up 0.7 %

Halliburton stock traded up $0.23 during trading on Friday, hitting $33.85. The company had a trading volume of 206,790 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,196,861. The stock has a market cap of $29.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.84 and a beta of 1.93. The company has a current ratio of 2.12, a quick ratio of 1.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. Halliburton has a 1-year low of $32.60 and a 1-year high of $43.85. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $35.05 and its 200-day simple moving average is $36.17.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The oilfield services company reported $0.76 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.74 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.67 billion. Halliburton had a return on equity of 30.84% and a net margin of 11.20%. Halliburton’s revenue was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.72 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Halliburton will post 3.37 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Halliburton Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 26th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 5th were given a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 5th. Halliburton’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.53%.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP Jill D. Sharp sold 3,346 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.00, for a total value of $123,802.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 40,185 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,486,845. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Halliburton news, insider Jeffrey Shannon Slocum sold 38,941 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.92, for a total transaction of $1,437,701.72. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 130,783 shares in the company, valued at $4,828,508.36. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Jill D. Sharp sold 3,346 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.00, for a total value of $123,802.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 40,185 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,486,845. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 52,287 shares of company stock worth $1,930,704. 0.61% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.