Oil & Gas Equipment & Services

Argus increases its price target on Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) from $42 to $48.

Since inception in 1988, the S&P 500 has outperformed the Zacks #5 Rank List - Stocks to Sell Now by 80% annually (+2% versus +10%). While the rest of Wall Street continued to tout stocks during the market declines of the last few years, Zacks told investors which stocks to sell or avoid...

In its weekly release, Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) reported a rise in the U.S. rig count (number of rigs searching for oil and gas in the country), primarily reflecting an increase in the inland water rig count. The Baker Hughes rig counts, issued since 1944...

Dahlman Rose has increased its price target on Dril-Quip (NYSE: DRQ) following big 3Q10 backlog growth. Dril-Quip's backlog increased to $625MM, a 16% sequential increase. This increase was mainly caused by a $100MM offshore production equipment order and the reinstatement of rig equipment backlog...

Dahlman Rose & Co. is raising price targets on oil service names, including Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL), FMC Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: FTI) and Dril-Quip, Inc. (NYSE: DRQ). It has a Buy rating on all three names. In the research note sent to clients, Dahlman writes, "We are raising our...

Analysts at Johnson Rice downgrade Willbros Group Inc (NYSE: WG) from "overweight" to "equal weight." WG's shares lost 7.71% to close at $8.26 on Friday. More Analyst Ratings here

Here's the Economic Calendar for the week commencing the 14th of November 2010. This week there's Japan Q3 GDP, with consensus picking a small acceleration from Q2. There's also meeting minutes due out from the BoE and RBA, which will be interesting in light of their recent...

The number of rigs searching for oil and natural gas in the U.S. rose by two this week to 1,685, according to oil services firm Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI). Baker Hughes said earlier today that 955 rigs were exploring for natural gas and 720 for oil. A year ago, the rig count checked in at 1,101 rigs...

CapitalOne Southcoast downgrades the following companies: Dril-Quip Inc. (NYSE: DRQ); from Add to Neutral, price target $78. FMC Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: FTI); from Add to Neutral, price target $81.

Tidewater Inc. (NYSE: TDW) announced that its board of directors declared on November 11, 2010, a quarterly dividend of $.25 per share on Tidewater's approximately 51.4 million shares of common stock outstanding. The dividend is payable December 15, 2010, to shareholders of record on December 3,...

Analysts at Jefferies & Co downgrade Willbros Group Inc (NYSE: WG) from "buy" to "hold." The target price for WG has been reduced from $13 to $10. WG's shares gained 2.17% to close at $8.95 yesterday. More Analyst Ratings here

Direxion Daily Tech Bear 3x Shares(ETF) (NYSE: TYP) spiked 4.87% on Thursday, and closed at $26.51. This was the second trading session in a row that TYP closed in the positive territory. Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: SOXS) gained 3.45% as the semiconductor sector struggled....

• Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) said it will offer free shipping on its website through December 20 • Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) said it will offer its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer for less than $500, a move likely to undercut prices for Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) winning iPad • Cisco (NASDAQ:...

Haliburton's (NYSE: HAL) analyst meeting, held in Houston the last couple of days, highlighted the company's recent successes but also that they are not standing still. Despite having a clear market leading franchise in North America, HAL is essentially “tearing up” the model in unconventional...

In Oppenheimer's Morning Research Summary both Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL), and WuXi Pharmatech Inc. (NYSE: WX), have Outperform ratings. After attending HAL analyst meetings this week, Oppenheimer states that they "came away comfortable with our positive view of the stock (even for NAM...