UPDATE: Bank Of America Upgrades ConocoPhillips On More Favorable Outlook

In a report published Tuesday, Bank of America analyst Doug Leggate upgraded the rating on ConocoPhillips COP from Underperform to Neutral, and raised the price target from $84.00 to $90.00. In the report, Bank of America noted, “In contrast to CVX, within the large cap US oils we have viewed COP as a hybrid that straddles the boundaries of the US E&P sector and the ‘super' major oils. Until now we have included COP within our E&P peer group. In this context we have argued that versus smaller, more nimble ‘pure play' E&P‘s COP could not compete on traditional metrics such as growth per debt adjusted share. In fact in our recent note Major or E&P we raised the question on whether COP should be defined as an Oil Major or an E&P. Our conclusion is COP retains more of its former ‘major' characteristics such as large scale, low growth and a focus on yield so that in our view, the appropriate peer group is ‘big oil' defined here as the Global ‘Supermajors.” ConocoPhillips closed on Monday at $79.03.