BMI

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...older news:

Badger Meter (BMI) may not be in the most exciting sector (water meters for utilities), but the stock has jumped 41 spots over the past two weeks to #58 in the IBD 100 Index. Our last profile of a little known company moving up the IBD Index has done well (NEU profiled at $60.97 on Feb 12, +25% in 6 weeks)... BMI's products, which are used to measure and control the flow of liquids, generally fall into two categories: utility (residential and commercial water meters that are used by water utilities) and industrial flow measurement (precision valves, electromagnetic inductive flow meters, automotive fluid meters)... In the old days, water meters have historically been read manually by utilities. Over the past decade, utilities have increasingly employed drive-by systems, known as automatic meter reading (AMR) systems, wherein a vehicle equipped for meter reading collects meter data. AMR systems continue to represent the majority of sales. However, the next generation of meter reading is being rolled out: fixed network advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems. These systems do not rely on a drive-by data collector, but rather incorporate a network of data collectors that are always listening to the radio transmission from the utility's meters. Not only does this eliminate the need for meter readers, but they provide more frequent and diverse data on a daily basis. BMI sells both AMR and AMI systems, both of which are higher margin products. Of note, there is a misconception that BMI is tied to the new housing market, but the vast majority of its sales are from replacement sales, not new housing. The conversion from manually read water meters to AMR/AMI has been accelerating the past few years yet the co estimates that only 25-30% of water meters have been converted to AMR/AMI systems thus far. Top line growth is not as high as we would like as Q4 revenue rose 8.5% yr/yr to $57.2 mln. However, EPS jumped 75% to $0.28 which makes its forward p/e of 26.1x pretty reasonable. The chart is impressive, steadily climbing higher over the past year and holding up well during the recent market weakness. With the stock close to making the new high list and with it moving up the IBD, it is likely to get more exposure in the near future. Note, the co reports Q1 results on Apr 16. Mkt cap $640 mln, float 13.5 mln, avg vol 98k.   B.C


and...

Badger Meter beats by $0.08, beats on revs (41.68 -0.34) : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.41 per share, $0.08 better than the First Call consensus of $0.33; revenues rose 29.9% year/year to $68.4 mln vs the $58.7 mln consensus. "The profit margin increased to 35.8% in the first quarter of 2008 from 30.9% in last year's first quarter, due to the higher sales, increased capacity utilization and price increases implemented during 2007."  b.c

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New 52wk high today on light vol...