Tudor Pickering Holt upgraded Pioneer Natural to buy, praising the company's production prospects and valuation.

"Pioneer Natural has been a cheap stock for some time and remains inexpensive on almost any valuation metric," analysts said. "Our bottoms-up analysis shows third quarter of 2010 will likely be the inflection point for PXD's accelerated organic growth program."

Tudor Pickering pegged Pioneer Natural as having "ongoing" prospects for growth through 2013 and beyond.