UPDATE: Bank of America Downgrades ConocoPhillips

According to a research report published this morning, Bank of America has downgraded ConocoPhillips COP from Neutral to Underperform. In the report, Bank of America mentioned, "As a stand alone E&P stock benchmarked against large cap US peers, we believe a starting valuation that stands at the upper end of this peer group stretches the boundaries of what can be justified by investors. Critically, a strategy that is anchored on top line growth with a dependent improvement in unit margins is all premised by management on a $120 sustainable Brent oil price deck that we view as ambitious. As a minimum, if we run the same set of commodity assumptions through the other large cap US oils we believe the pace of transition from gas to liquids, available capital for reinvestment or flexibility to for other initiatives (buy backs, etc) stands ahead of COP in almost every case. Should oil prices weaken, our concern is the pace of improvement will slow." Bank of America maintains its $63 PO on ConocoPhillips, which closed yesterday at $56.51.