Halliburton (NYSE:HAL – Get Free Report) and Vantage Drilling (OTCMKTS:VTGDF – Get Free Report) are both energy companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Halliburton and Vantage Drilling, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Halliburton | 1 | 6 | 18 | 0 | 2.68 |
| Vantage Drilling | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
Halliburton currently has a consensus price target of $43.10, indicating a potential upside of 24.43%. Given Halliburton’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Halliburton is more favorable than Vantage Drilling.
Valuation & Earnings
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Halliburton | $22.37 billion | 1.29 | $1.28 billion | $1.91 | 18.13 |
| Vantage Drilling | $138.25 million | N/A | $40.34 million | $4.40 | N/A |
Halliburton has higher revenue and earnings than Vantage Drilling. Vantage Drilling is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Halliburton, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Volatility and Risk
Halliburton has a beta of 0.73, suggesting that its share price is 27% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vantage Drilling has a beta of 0.45, suggesting that its share price is 55% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
85.2% of Halliburton shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of Halliburton shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.5% of Vantage Drilling shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Profitability
This table compares Halliburton and Vantage Drilling’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Halliburton | 7.16% | 18.71% | 7.89% |
| Vantage Drilling | 38.80% | -9.97% | -6.50% |
Summary
Halliburton beats Vantage Drilling on 9 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.
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.
About Vantage Drilling
Vantage Drilling Company is in liquidation. Previously, the company was engaged in the provision of offshore contract drilling services for multinational oil and natural gas companies, government owned oil and natural gas companies, and independent oil and natural gas producers in the United States and internationally. Vantage Drilling Company was founded in 2007 and is based in Houston, Texas.
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