< The 2014 All-America Research TeamSavita SubramanianhBank of America Merrill LynchFirst-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 5

Team debut: 2010After four years as a runner-up, Savita Subramanian rises to third place. The Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategist also earns her first appearance in Portfolio Strategy this year, at runner-up. She is “prolific,” one fund manager attests, and “regularly publishes useful pieces — breaking down or dissecting factors driving market returns — that nonquants can use.” In her June “Know Your Biases” report, Subramanian observed that active managers generally “tend to have chronic overweights in discretionary, technology and health care sectors, which have historically offered the most stock-picking alpha. The risk is that while stock selection may add more alpha within these sectors, the sectors themselves don’t necessarily warrant permanent overweights.” In addition, she notes, investors are missing a significant opportunity by habitually underweighting megacaps, such as the ten largest companies in the S&P 500 Index, especially in “highly correlated sectors like energy and utilities.” Accordingly, the strategist is recommending that clients take another look at the big names, “which have outperformed the market nearly every month this year,” she asserts. “Moreover, the chances of beating the market by being overweight in megacaps have been greater than 50 percent over the last 30 years.”