Numis Securities has upgraded its rating for UK banking group Barclays from 'reduce' to 'hold' and hiked its target price from 222p to 274p, saying that investment risks have already partially been priced in.Analysts Mike Trippitt said that while Barclays awaits announcements from regulators on leverage ratios, its dividend "may well be the release valve for any leverage pressure". However, he said: "Whilst the investment case is muddied by leverage uncertainties, some uncertainty is discounted in recent share price weakness."Credit Suisse has more than halved its target price for Perform Group from 570p to just 246p after the digital sports media firm's profit warning on Thursday."We remain optimistic on the longer-term growth profile and business model of the group given the structural growth in the exploitation of digital content. However we acknowledge that after three warnings this year, with no detailed explanation yet for the reasons for the current ad spend weakness, and no guidance forthcoming on how this may be mitigated by the 'major cost review exercise' until the FY results in February, the stock could remain under pressure in the short term."Oil and gas producers were trading in the red on Friday morning after UBS said it is 'remaining cautious' on the outlook for 2014 for the industry."With the macro not expected to improve, a lengthening track record of patchy execution across the value chain, and no obvious big valuation call we see little reason for the European oil and gas sector to reverse its underperformance of 2012 and 2013," the bank said. Nevertheless, it named BG Group as its top pick in the sector with a target price of 1,400p.BC