Eiichi Katayama
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Although he slips to second place, Eiichi Katayama of Bank of America Merrill Lynch continues to win praise for his “insightful and well-thought-out views,” as one portfolio manager puts it. Katayama has low expectations for the sector’s near-term prospects because the smartphone market’s rapid growth has cannibalized revenue of other products such as digital cameras and because an outbreak of anti-Japanese sentiment in China has depressed sales of some goods there. Although the sector’s large-cap names have experienced substantial upside because of the yen’s pullback, Katayama says, once the currency stabilizes investors should focus on stocks that “remain undervalued, despite strong international competitiveness in certain products, and those with potential for profit growth, even as smartphones become commoditized.” A likely winner, he advises, should be Tokyo’s Alpine Electronics, one of the world’s top makers of audio equipment and navigation systems for cars, which the analyst believes will benefit from sales to luxury automakers like Germany’s BMW. . — Carolyn Koo