Diego Celedón & team J.P. Morgan

In second place for a second straight year is J.P. Morgan; the two-member team is also rated No. 1 for coverage of Chile and No. 3 for North Andean Countries. Directed by Santiago, Chile–based newcomer Diego Celedón, the duo has done “a good job staying on top of recent events after the president nationalized oil company [Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales],” attests one investor. “Argentina is a heterodox economy, so it’s a macropolitical call and you have to be completely on top of that.” The Argentinean government expropriated a majority stake in the Buenos Aires–based oil and gas company in April, insisting that its parent company, Spain’s Repsol, was underinvesting in exploration and production and paying out excessive dividends to fund operations in other countries; Repsol has challenged the legality of the seizure and is demanding more than $10 billion in compensation. Celedón declined to disclose any stock recommendations but does note that J.P. Morgan's economics team lowered its forecast for Argentina's 2012 real gross domestic product growth from 2 percent to 1.3 percent.. “The revision reflects the impact of domestic policy inconsistencies and the weakening external demand picture, particularly from Brazil,” he explains. Nonetheless, Argentina is “currently the cheapest emerging market in terms of price-to-earnings ratio,” he adds. — Paul Sweeney