Bank Of America Adds Occidental Petroleum Corporation To Its US1 List

In note published Wednesday morning, Bank of America analyst Doug Leggate added Occidental Petroleum Corporation OXY to the firm's US1 List and reiterated a Buy rating.

Leggate wrote, "We suggest the combination of share repurchases, competitive debt adjusted per share growth and a prospective sector leading dividend above ~4% can drive a re-rating over the next 12m."

Leggate sees the company using proceeds from asset sales for buying back as much as 13 percent of its outstanding shares, as well as posting another year of "strong" dividend growth. Moreover, he noted this could serve as a catalyst to bring Occidental in line with other large cap dividend stocks.

Looking forward, Leggate has set a $130 price objective and is predicting an EPS from 2014-2016 of $7.27, $8.29 and $9.44, respectively.