Shares of Itron Inc. have shot up to a 52-week high in the last week following a strong earnings report by the Spokane Valley-based automated meter-reading equipment maker and an analysts upgrade of the companys stock.


Itrons stock jumped to a closing price of $37.40 a share on Tuesday, May 3, up $5.72or 18 percentsince the previous Tuesday, when the company reported first-quarter net income of $817,000, or 4 cents a share. That compared with a net loss of $738,000, or 4 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter.


The company said its revenues for the latest quarter soared to $116.5 million, up from $65.6 million in the year-earlier period, and that it shipped about 935,000 automatic meter reading modules in the quarter, 115,000 more than in the year-earlier quarter.


The day after the earnings report, New York-based JPMorgan raised its stock rating on Itron to neutral from underweight, citing strong earnings, gross margins, and future prospects, which helped fuel Itrons stock price surge.


In his report for JPMorgan, research analyst Paul Coster said Itrons acquisition last year of Schlumberger Ltd.s electric-metering operation appears to offset historic lumpiness in the business, and we are incrementally positive on the story and prospects for Itrons 2005 fiscal year.


We missed a great run-up here, he wrote in his report. Of the neutral rating, he said, JPMorgan remains slightly cautious given increasing competitive and pricing pressures, but believes that Itron, after a slew of acquisitions, is now on track for more stabilized growth.


Itrons stock had been climbing steadily since last fall, when its shares hit a 52-week low of $15.93 a share. The biggest spike before last week came on Feb. 16, a day after Itron released its upbeat fourth-quarter and full-year 2004 results, after which another research firm, First Albany Cos., upgraded its Itron rating to strong buy from buy. That helped trigger a $4.39 one-day rise in the companys share price, boosting it to $25.89 a share.