Better late than never, I suppose. On Monday, Standard & Poor's raised its credit rating on Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), the second largest company in the oilfield services contingent. In making its change, which boosts the company's status two hitches from "BBB-plus" to "A," S&P cited the company's separation from KBR (NYSE: KBR), its former engineering and construction unit, which was spun off earlier this year.
Perhaps it was appropriate for the rating change to take several months. In contrast to the minute-to-minute attention span of the equities markets, debt ratings changes typically occur at a much more measured pace.
But the Halliburton news also caused me to revisit the actions of the oilfield services group in the face of the market's recent turbulence and its nearly hour-by-hour swings. Those swings, coupled with the ongoing changes in crude oil and natural gas prices, could have bounced the group around like dinghies in a deluge. Fortunately, they didn't.
