re: Per Bloomberg: Halliburton and Baker Hughes deal is OFF

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Well sure, but it isn't exactly fair to say Halliburton cannot be as big as Schlumberger just because they got big first. Assuming that was a hurdle for the deal, it sucks the DOJ penalized Halliburton because of Schlumberger.

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Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree with you on this point. Absolutely. However, they (Halliburton) should have foreseen that the "powers that be" were going to dictate their entire approach based solely on this single idea. Halliburton said it best when presented with the findings of the Antitrust, which feared this takeover would lead to an unsustainable market: “What we are experiencing today is far beyond headwinds; it is unsustainable. My definition of an unsustainable market is one where all service companies are losing money in North America, which is where we are now.”
They're in a shitty spot. Not only paying $3.5B in fees to BH, but their forecasting is pretty crappy to ice the cake:

*Halliburton is forecasting over 30% drop in global drilling & completions spending.
*They've laid off about 1/3 of their staff globaly
*They've cut over 6,000 jobs in the first quarter
*They're forecasting an additional 50% decline in North American spending in 2016
*They've got the lowest rig count globally since 1999
*They're also forecasting production declines in the latter part of 2016

Basically, this situation is the last thing they would like to see happen