Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) Plans $0.17 Quarterly Dividend

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 5th will be given a dividend of 0.17 per share by the oilfield services company on Wednesday, March 26th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 5th.

Halliburton has raised its dividend by an average of 55.7% per year over the last three years. Halliburton has a dividend payout ratio of 22.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Halliburton to earn $2.92 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.68 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 23.3%.

Halliburton Stock Performance

HAL opened at $26.34 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $22.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.31, a P/E/G ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 1.89. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $27.03 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $28.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 2.05 and a quick ratio of 1.54. Halliburton has a 1 year low of $25.16 and a 1 year high of $41.56.

Insider Activity

In related news, CFO Eric Carre sold 141,206 shares of Halliburton stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.13, for a total value of $3,689,712.78. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 127,101 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,321,149.13. The trade was a 52.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.61% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

HAL has been the topic of several recent research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of Halliburton from $35.00 to $33.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $42.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Halliburton from $39.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Griffin Securities lowered shares of Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, UBS Group lowered Halliburton from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $36.00 to $34.00 in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Halliburton presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $37.42.

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.