Shai Hill & team
Macquarie Securities
London-based Shai Hill shepherds Macquarie Securities’ team of two up one rung to second place. The analysts track 21 stocks and plan to expand their coverage universe this year. “They stick to their guns,” comments one New York–based money manager, highlighting a February 2012 reiteration of an underperform on German wind-turbine manufacturer Nordex. The stock, then at €4.71, had already climbed 19.2 percent year-to-date, besting the broad market by 11.2 percentage points, but the researchers believed that the market was overreacting to a surge in new orders in the fourth quarter; the growth would not be sustainable, they argued, and Nordex would face ongoing gross margin pressure from declining prices and excess capacity. They were right. By the end of the year, the stock had plunged 36.5 percent, to €2.99, and trailed the broad market by a whopping 40 percentage points since the reiteration — and the analysts remain pessimistic. — Ben Mattlin