STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Johnson Matthey rises on bullish JPM note

Shares in Johnson Matthey (LSE: JMAT.L - news) climb 4.5 percent to top the list of FTSE 100 gainers, with traders citing a note by JP Morgan (Other OTC: JPYYL - news) , in which the bank upgrades the maker of catalytic converters to "overweight" from "neutral" and sees a potential upside of 35 percent to the current price, as the main driver.

"Johnson Matthey is at an inflection point," JP Morgan says in a note. "We expect years of investment in the industrial catalyst market to lead to accelerated growth, benefiting from the swathe of new customer capex driven by Chinese petrochemical self-sustainability and the U.S. shale gas revolution."

A third of the company's revenues, which are expected to top 11.2 billion pounds for the full-year 2014, are exposed to the United States, while 14 percent are focused towards China and Hong Kong, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The U.S. investment bank lifts its earnings per share estimates by up to 6 percent for 2015 and 2016, raises its Dec. 2014 target price to 4,000 pence from 2,800 pence and adds Johnson Matthey to its analyst focus list.

Johnson Matthey shares have outperformed the benchmark FTSE 100 by 20 percent in the year-to-date, but analysts covering the stock remain relatively cautious with 10 out of 16 rating the stock as "hold" with the other 6 recommending investors "buy" the shares.

Johnson Matthey is one of the least shorted stocks on the FTSE 100 ranked 63rd out of 100, according to data from Markit, with just 1.4 percent of shares available being utilised for loans.

Reuters messaging rm://david.brett.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net