Nabors, Superior Energy, Precision Drilling, Patterson upped at Credit Suisse

• Credit Suisse analyst James Wichlund upgrades the oilfield services and equipment sector and select names, citing seasonal and cyclical recovery trade for 2017.
• Oilfield services stocks are not cheap on any 2018 valuation metric, Wichlund says, but he expects to see upward earnings revisions beginning in Q1 and continue for the next few years - the opposite of the past two years of downward earnings revisions - and thinks management teams will underpromise and over-deliver on pricing and utilization gains as the cycle turns.
• The firm upgrades Nabors Industries (NBR +3.8%) and Superior Energy (SPN +5%) to Outperform from Neutral, and raises Precision Drilling (PDS +5.2%) and Patterson-UTI (PTEN +2.9%) to Neutral from Underperform, while cutting Baker Hughes (BHI +0.1%) to Neutral from Outperform, citing a "significantly disconnected" valuation from business fundamentals.
• ETFs: OIH, IEZ, XES