Edward Garlich Jr.
& team
Guggenheim Securities
First-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 17

Team debut: 1996

The 11-analyst troupe that Edward Garlich Jr. directs captures second place for a fourth year in a row. With Guggenheim Securities since last year, the Washington-based researchers “know where all the bodies are buried on Capitol Hill,” avers one investor, “and what’s happening behind the scenes on matters like debt-ceiling negotiations.” The group believes the 2014 U.S. midterm congressional elections will leave the Republican Party in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the hands of the Democrats, despite GOP gains in that chamber, according to Christopher Krueger, the team’s political analyst. This balance will continue to constrain President Obama’s legislative agenda through the remainder of his second term, the analysts advise. Krueger’s financial services colleague Jaret Seiberg reports that they are also alerting investors to expect “tight underwriting regulations, rising interest rates, conflicting government policies and record student loan debt” to imperil both mortgage origination volume and the housing industry recovery. Finally, a “more vigilant” U.S. Federal Communications Commission, telecommunications analyst Paul Gallant says, will crack down on cable operators’s broadband pricing — to the detriment of those companies and the benefit of such emerging Internet-based television providers as Cupertino-based Apple; Mountain View–based Google and Santa Clara–based Intel Corp., all of which are headquartered in California. — Paul Sweeney