THIRD TEAM

Daiki Takayama Goldman Sachs Japan Co.

Daiki Takayama captures third-place honors for a second consecutive year. The Goldman Sachs Japan Co. analyst upgraded Nitto Denko Corp., a Tokyo-based chemicals company that also makes materials used to produce semiconductors and cell-phone screen sealants, from neutral to buy in November, at ¥3,465, on the growth of tablet PCs as end-users for the company’s optical coatings. By late February the stock had jumped 42.1 percent, to ¥4,925, and trounced the sector by a whopping 30 percentage points. “Takayama-san utilizes a broad base of information,” asserts one sponsor.

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