Critical Review: Halliburton (HAL) and Its Competitors

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) is one of 42 public companies in the “OIL – FIELD SVCS” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its rivals? We will compare Halliburton to related companies based on the strength of its earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Dividends

Halliburton pays an annual dividend of $0.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Halliburton pays out 45.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “OIL – FIELD SVCS” companies pay a dividend yield of 2.1% and pay out 46.7% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Halliburton has raised its dividend for 4 consecutive years.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

85.2% of Halliburton shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.8% of shares of all “OIL – FIELD SVCS” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of Halliburton shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 8.1% of shares of all “OIL – FIELD SVCS” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Halliburton and its rivals, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Halliburton	0	7	15	1	2.74
Halliburton Competitors	328	1991	3218	124	2.55

Halliburton presently has a consensus price target of $37.81, indicating a potential upside of 1.75%. As a group, “OIL – FIELD SVCS” companies have a potential upside of 0.34%. Given Halliburton’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Halliburton is more favorable than its rivals.

Profitability

This table compares Halliburton and its rivals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Halliburton	5.78%	19.77%	8.18%
Halliburton Competitors	4.31%	4.24%	2.35%

Risk and Volatility

Halliburton has a beta of 0.68, meaning that its share price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Halliburton’s rivals have a beta of 2.96, meaning that their average share price is 196% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Halliburton and its rivals gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Halliburton	$22.18 billion	$1.28 billion	24.61
Halliburton Competitors	$4.81 billion	$355.30 million	89.86

Halliburton has higher revenue and earnings than its rivals. Halliburton is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its rivals, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Halliburton beats its rivals on 11 of the 15 factors compared.

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. This segment also provides electrical submersible pumps, as well as artificial lift services; production solutions comprising coiled tubing, hydraulic workover units, downhole tools, and pumping and nitrogen services; pipeline and process services, such as pre-commissioning, commissioning, maintenance, and decommissioning; and specialty chemicals and services. The Drilling and Evaluation segment offers drilling fluid systems, performance additives, completion fluids, solids control, specialized testing equipment, and waste management services; drilling systems and services; wireline and perforating services consists of open-hole logging, and cased-hole and slickline; and drill bits and services comprising roller cone rock bits, fixed cutter bits, hole enlargement, and related downhole tools and services, as well as coring equipment and services. This segment also provides cloud based digital services and artificial intelligence solutions on an open architecture for subsurface insights, integrated well construction, and reservoir and production management; testing and subsea services, such as acquisition and analysis of reservoir information and optimization solutions; and project management and integrated asset management services. Halliburton Company was founded in 1919 and is based in Houston, Texas.