Sterne Agee Reiterates Buy Rating on Badger Meter (BMI)

Sterne Agee is out with a research report this morning, where it reiterates its Buy rating on Badger Meter Inc.

; it has a $47.00 price target on the stock. The SA analysts said that they are looking for revenue and EPS to come in above the Street consensus and that they expect strong order rates exiting 2Q10 into July, contributed to a small Q/Q uptick in revenues in Water sales and Specialty sales, which cycled down significantly more than Water sales' continued modest cyclical improvement in the quarter. They added, “Our $75M sales estimate represents a record revenue quarter for BMI and follows 2Q10 revenue performance of $74.3M, up ~10% Y/Y, which was within ~$0.5M of peak revenues in 2Q08. We remain optimistic with respect to BMI's top-line growth prospects. Our 2011 revenue growth estimate is 11%.” Their price target is based on “~21x our FY11 EPS.”