Analyst upgrades:

• Societe Generale upgraded shares of Veolia Environment (NYSE: VE) to Buy from Hold as they believe the company's new finance chief implement additional cost savings.
  
• Citigroup upgraded shares of Sun Healthcare (NASDAQ: SUNH) to Buy from Hold and added the stock to their Top Picks Live List as they believe the market is pricing in a more severe Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement outlook than is probable. The firm has a $14 target on the stock.
  
• Calyon believes in 2010, American Express (NYSE: AXP) will have easy comps, reserve releases, and income statement leverage. The firm upgraded shares to Outperform from Underperform.
• Societe Generale (OTC: SCGLY) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Citigroup.
  
• Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) was raised to neutral from Sell at UBS.
  
• Goldman upgraded Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) to Buy from Neutral and added shares to the Conviction Buy List; Goldman also added Bristol-Myers (NYSE: BMY) to the Conviction Buy List.

Readers of this space know that one of my preferred sectors has been in oil and oil services.

Further, with oil now well above $110 per barrel, one may think that all of the attractive oil plays have been bid up. Indeed, most have, but one that may represent an opportunity, for high-risk investors only, is TXCO Resources.

TXCO Resources (NASDAQ: TXCO) acquires, explores, develops, and produces oil and gas properties. The company's primary focus is on developing oil and gas reserves on properties located in Texas. The company's reserve mix is 54% oil and 46% natural gas.

In general, analysts expect TXCO's revenue to increase by better than 20% in F2008 after an impressive 30% gain in F2007.

Further, analysts also like the fact that TXCO's proved reserves increased substantially, via drilling and acquisition, to 91.8 billion CFE at the end of F2007, from 41.4 billion CFE at the end of F2006. The Reuters F2008/F2009 EPS consensus estimates for TXCO are 57 cents / 75 cents.