Gulf oil spill: (HAL) The Trend continues lower

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) on April 30, 2010 at $30.24. In approximately 3 weeks, Halliburton has returned 13.4% as of today's recent price of $26.18.

Halliburton is currently below its 50-day moving average of $30.85 and below its 200-day moving average of $29.30. Look for these moving averages to decline to confirm the company's downward momentum.

"This catastrophe appears to have been caused by a calamitous series of equipment and operational failures. If the largest oil and oil services companies in the world had been more careful, 11 lives might have been saved and our coastlines protected."

But Waxman immediately focused on Halliburton's cementing job as the first in a complex chain of events that ended with an explosion and fire April 20 that left 11 men missing and presumed dead and started a spill of 5,000 barrels per day that now threatens the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

“Before, during or after the cement job, an undetected influx of hydrocarbons entered the wellbore,” Waxman said. "What this means is that there was a breach somewhere in well integrity that allowed methane gas and possibly other hydrocarbons to enter the well."