Ross Gilardi, BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

The buy side says: “Ross’s counterconsensus underweight calls are excellent.”

BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research jumps two spots to land on top for the first time since 2002, this time thanks to the efforts of solo analyst Ross Gilardi. The London-­based researcher tracks just nine stocks but stands out for “calling the decline in global pulp prices,” as one money manager puts it. Gilardi did this in a series of downgrades from neutral to underperform: In late June, for instance, he reduced Finland’s Stora Enso, then at €6.95, on rising costs, slowing exports and soft volumes. By early December, when he raised the Helsinki-­based newsprint and packaging supplier back to neutral, primarily on valuation, its stock had fallen 31.1 percent, to €4.79, and trailed the containers and packaging subsector by 24.8 percentage points. (The shares ended the year at €4.63.) Gilardi, 40, joined Merrill Lynch’s New York offices in 1999 after earning an MBA at that city’s Columbia University; he relocated to London ten years later.