TLDR
- Energy stocks climbed in premarket trading Monday after U.S. forces struck Iran’s Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, pushing oil prices up more than 3.5%.
- HAL rose 2.5% in premarket, with Brent crude jumping to $91.20 a barrel and WTI reaching $86.30.
- Corient Private Wealth LP picked up 242,112 HAL shares worth roughly $8.2 million in Q2, joining BlackRock and Capital Research as recent institutional buyers.
- Halliburton beat Q2 earnings expectations with $0.55 EPS and $5.71 billion in revenue, up 3.7% year over year.
- Analysts hold a “Moderate Buy” consensus on HAL with an average price target of $43.10, versus a current price of $36.19.
Halliburton (HAL) opened at $36.19 Monday, with premarket gains of around 2.5% after U.S. forces struck missile launchers on Iran’s Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. It was the first confirmed American strike on Iran since late July.
Oil prices moved sharply higher on the news. Brent crude jumped 3.5% to $91.20 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate rose 3.5% to $86.30. That pulled the broader energy sector up with it.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded to the U.S. strike by hitting two American air bases in Jordan, according to Iranian state media. Efforts to end the conflict remain stalled, with international mediators still trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that carried roughly one-fifth of global oil supply before fighting broke out in late February.
President Trump also posted on social media Sunday claiming Iran’s Kharg Island energy hub was being “blown to smithereens,” with an AI-generated video attached. Iran denied any attack on Kharg Island and said operations there were continuing normally.
Other energy names also gained. Chevron was up 1.7%, Exxon Mobil rose 1.5%, and SLB gained 1.7%. Refiners Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66 were up 0.6% and 1% respectively.
Institutional Buyers Move In
Away from the geopolitical noise, Halliburton has been attracting institutional interest. Corient Private Wealth LP picked up 242,112 HAL shares worth approximately $8.2 million during Q2. BlackRock initiated a new position worth over $2.8 billion in the same period. Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake by 21.1%, bringing its total to over 110 million shares.
Institutional investors now own 85.23% of HAL. The stock has a 52-week range of $21.40 to $43.59, and a market cap of $30.15 billion.
Q2 Earnings Beat and Dividend
Halliburton reported Q2 earnings on July 21, beating analyst expectations. The company posted $0.55 EPS against a consensus of $0.54, and revenue came in at $5.71 billion, topping the $5.50 billion estimate. That represents 3.7% revenue growth year over year.
The company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.17 per share, payable September 23. The ex-dividend date is September 2. That puts the annualized yield at 1.9%.
Analysts currently have a “Moderate Buy” consensus on HAL, with an average price target of $43.10.
On the contracts front, Halliburton recently won an integrated deal from BP for an appraisal campaign at the Bumerangue field offshore Brazil. The company is also reportedly in talks around possible Venezuelan oil field redevelopment as U.S. firms discuss multibillion-dollar investments there.
On the downside, insiders have been selling. COO Jeffrey Slocum sold 52,572 shares on August 19 at $35.09 each, cutting his position by 30.69%. CFO Eric Carre sold 24,778 shares in June at $35.89. Both trades were executed under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that Washington plans to roll out new secondary sanctions against Iran on a weekly basis going forward.
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