Wallace Cheung & team
Credit Suisse
After three years in the runner-up position, Wallace Cheung’s Credit Suisse trio leaps to second place. The Hong Kong–based leader has a “good understanding of the sector and value drivers for the various companies under coverage,” in the words of one investor. One current catalyst is mobile Internet usage, which is providing “a lot of opportunities and challenges as people are using their phones more,” Cheung explains. “The Internet players have a limited capability to monetize the mobile traffic.” The analysts believe that midcap names have a better chance of succeeding because, he says, they are “more focused on what they’re offering, while a big company has a lot of products.” Recommended names include two Nasdaq Stock Market–listed Chinese outfits: NetEase, which operates the popular 163.com portal and is “spending quite a bit of money on mobile and making some breakthroughs,” Cheung reports; and Sina Corp., which owns Weibo (China’s version of Twitter) and is improving its monetization efforts. The shares were trading in late April at $56.39 and $56.32, respectively, and the team has set target prices of $68 and $70. — Carolyn Koo