Oil Ends to the Upside

Because of the higher crack spreads, Merrill also increased its earnings estimates for the independent U.S. refineries Frontier (FTO Quote), Valero (VLO Quote), Tesoro (TSO Quote), Holly (HOC Quote) and Sunoco (SUN Quote). Refinery stocks traded mostly higher on the news.

Other energy stocks were mixed. The iPath Goldman Sachs Crude Oil (OIL Quote) ETF eased 0.48% to $35.39.

Natural gas provider El Paso (EP Quote) was upgraded by Credit Suisse to outperform from neutral, and its shares advanced 2.4% to $14.37. Alon USA Energy (ALJ Quote) was upgraded by Caris & Co. to above average from average, and its stock was up 8.3% at $33.44.

Shares of oil and gas service-provider Todco (THE Quote), now in a merger deal, were upgraded by Capital One Southwest to buy from hold. The company's stock was up 0.8% at $39.54.

Natural gas distributor OneOK (OKE Quote) was downgraded by Credit Suisse to neutral from outperform, and its shares lost 0.8% to $45.41.

Cabot Oil & Gas (COG Quote) was downgraded by Matrix Research to buy from strong buy, and Martin Midstream Partners (MMLP Quote) was downgraded by RBC Capital Markets to sector perform from outperform. The two companies fell 0.4% and 1.9%, respectively.