Broker tips: Johnson Matthey, JD Wetherspoon, Tarsus

14th Sep 2009 12:30

Shares in speciality chemicals group Johnson Matthey fell back after Morgan Stanley downgraded its rating on the stock to 'equal-weight' from 'overweight.' The broker raises its price target on the firm to 1,450p from 1,400p, but sees little upside potential beyond this.It says its downgrade of Johnson Matthey implies a more negative overall stance on the UK chemicals sector.Johnson Matthey, which refines platinum and produces catalytic converters for cars, has seen its share price rally sharply this year, in line with prices for the precious metal. The shares plunged towards the end of last year as the global economic crisis intensified.Panmure Gordon has upgraded its earnings forecasts for JD Wetherspoon after the pub group announced better than expected full year results last week.Although the broker has a 'buy' recommendation on the stock its profit before tax forecasts for fiscal 2010 and 2011 were below market consensus; Panmure Gordon has now upped its 2010 and 2011 forecasts by 22% and 21% respectively.It is forecasting profit before tax of £72m for the year to end-July 2010, and pre-tax profit of £77.6m for fiscal 2011. The brokoer's price target has been lifted to 600p from 585p.Although Wetherspoon said that like for like (LFL) sales had risen by 1.2% in the first six weeks of the new financial year, Panmure Gordin is adopting a cautious approach and forecasting zero growth in LFL sales over the full year.'Given the operational gearing in the business model, any LFL sales growth outperformance would likely lead to significant EPS upgrades (1% LFL sales growth =c7% EPS growth). However, the group may choose to re-invest gross margin in further price reductions for the consumer to drive market share,' analyst Simon French said.The sale of a French joint venture should provide further support to investor confidence in events and conferencing group Tarsus, believes broker KBC Peel Hunt, which has reiterated its 'buy' recommendation on the stock.The company has sold its French joint venture to its partner, Reed, for £0.4m and announced plans to invest £0.45m in its Chinese joint venture (JV), a sum that will be matched by its JV partner.'Trading for the group remains in line with the board's expectation and [they] anticipated a very satisfactory outcome,' KBC analyst Malcolm Morgan notes.Given that the 2009 show run by the French joint venture has already taken place this year Morgan expects the sale to have little impact on this year's earnings.KBC has a target price of 120p for Tarsus.