< The 2014 All-India Research TeamRohini MalkaniCitiFirst-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 3

Analyst debut: 2011Unranked last year, Citi’s Rohini Malkani returns to this roster in third place, the position she most recently earned in her 2011 debut. She monitors the full range of client concerns, whether equities, fixed-income securities or corporate banking, and “is especially good at digging deep into the numbers and providing insightful analyses,” reports one fund manager in Hong Kong. “I don’t spend a lot of time on India, but when there’s something I need to know, I read her commentary first.” Malkani is cautiously optimistic about India’s economy going forward. The nation’s real gross domestic product expanded by 4.7 percent in the fiscal year that ended March 31, compared with the year-earlier period, and she predicts that growth will increase to 7 percent by April 2016. At the same time, she anticipates that consumer price index inflation will moderate from 9.5 percent toward 6 percent over the period. Domestic equity markets, she forecasts, will “continue to be the preferred asset class for a long-term investor.” In part that’s because she expects the “pace of reforms to accelerate,” she says, pointing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiatives to encourage local manufacturing and international investment.