Hajime Kitano J.P. Morgan

The buy side says: “He uses a combination of technical and fundamental analysis and is always logical and persuasive.”

Climbing one rung to finish on top for the first time since 2007 is Hajime Kitano of J.P. Morgan. “His way of thinking is always based on fundamental logic, and he frequently provides a contrarian view,” explains one buy-side loyalist. Case in point: In November the 51-year-old strategist published a report, “Japanese Stocks Still Have Pent-up Energy,” in which he argued against the consensus view that a recent rally in domestic equities was fueled by quantitative easing measures in the U.S. Kitano pointed out that “if capital were flowing into Japan, the yen ought to have appreciated, while it has in fact depreciated” and that the rally was driven by securities and commodities futures trading, followed by robust investor interest in bank shares. In short, he told clients, “the financial sector has boosted Japanese stocks” and would likely continue to do so. By the end of February, Japan’s broad market had advanced 13.3 percent and its financial services sector had gained 19.7 percent.

Polling and tabulation of data as well as reporting on the sector profiles were completed before the March 11 Tohoku earthquake.