The share price of chemicals group Johnson Matthey jumped on Monday morning after the stock was upgraded by JPMorgan Cazenove from 'neutral' to 'overweight'.

The US bank hiked its target price for the shares from 2,800p to 4,000p, saying that it sees "major potential from a swathe of new global industrial capex".

Ahead of Johnson Matthey's first-half report on November 21st, JPMorgan said it expects "robust figures" with the company well-positioned to meet forecasts.

It believes that the firm is at an "inflection point": "We expect years of investment in the industrial catalyst market to lead to accelerated growth, benefitting from the swathe of new customer capex driven by Chinese petrochemical self-sustainability and the US shale gas revolution."

JPMorgan said that the Process Technologies division will be the swing factor for Johnson Matthey, with the manufacture of catalysts and plant licensing for petrochemicals and hydrogen set to achieve double-digit growth over the medium term. The division is expected to deliver 13% sales growth in the year ending March 2015 and 14% growth the following year.

Meanwhile, expectations over the Euro 6 emission standards diesel legislation look well underpinned for the Emissions Control Technologies division, the bank said.

"Whilst we expect a truck pre-buy ahead of the Euro 6 implementation to have a negative impact on H1 2014 volumes in Europe, production levels should improve over the course of 2014. We also expect the key North American market to return to growth in 2014 after a modest 2013."

The stock was up 4.15% at 2,938p by 10:24 on Monday.

BC

Related share prices
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) share price