Jerome Ramel & team, Exane BNP Paribas

Jerome Ramel’s Exane BNP Paribas threesome vaults from runner-up to second place. Clients say this “passionate and knowledgeable team” has a “solid and unique industry network to draw from.” The Paris-based analysts alerted investors to a coming downturn last summer. “We downgraded the sector to negative in July, claiming it was going to face an inventory correction as a result of buildup following Japan’s disaster,” Ramel says, along with declining demand among U.S. — and especially European — consumers. The sector, which had advanced 2.4 percent in the first half of last year, erased those gains in the second half. The researchers expect a turnaround this year, most likely near the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second.