Halliburton to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.17 (NYSE:HAL)

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, November 18th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 4th will be given a dividend of 0.17 per share by the oilfield services company on Thursday, December 26th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.23%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 4th.

Halliburton has raised its dividend by an average of 26.7% per year over the last three years. Halliburton has a dividend payout ratio of 21.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Halliburton to earn $3.17 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 21.5%.

Halliburton Trading Up 0.1 %

HAL stock opened at $30.47 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $26.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.64 and a beta of 1.89. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $29.22 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $32.08. Halliburton has a one year low of $27.26 and a one year high of $41.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 2.21 and a quick ratio of 1.62.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The oilfield services company reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $5.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.83 billion. Halliburton had a net margin of 11.04% and a return on equity of 28.33%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.79 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Halliburton will post 3.02 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently issued reports on HAL. Raymond James reduced their price target on Halliburton from $41.00 to $37.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Halliburton from $47.00 to $43.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Susquehanna lowered their price target on shares of Halliburton from $42.00 to $40.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, October 14th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on shares of Halliburton from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $40.74.

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.