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Gray Newman
& team
Morgan Stanley
First-place appearances: 10

Total appearances: 19

Team debut: 1994

Morgan Stanley wins the pole position for a third consecutive year — and for the tenth time since Gray Newman took charge of the team in 2001. The New York–based crew captain believes that Latin America is “in the worst of both worlds.” The U.S. Federal Reserve has signaled its intent to begin winding down its quantitative easing program even as the data from the region’s various countries are prompting a reduction in real gross domestic product growth numbers. Mexico’s is the most promising market, Newman contends, because the country is “on the eve of a narrative-changing constitutional opening of the energy sector that has enormous implications for foreign direct investment, for currency strength and for the pace of Mexican growth.” That nation’s currency is “trading at a level that I believe is inconsistent with the Mexican outlook,” the 54-year-old adds. Clients are impressed. Newman has “a star team of country economists — they are extremely responsive and happy to engage in debate rather than just read from a script,” says one. Another reports that the squad excels at “identifying key long-term structural trends, especially deterioration in Brazil and improvement in Mexico, that have manifested themselves in equity and foreign exchange performance.” — Carolyn Koo