SECOND TEAM Carter Braxton Worth  Oppenheimer & Co.

At No. 2 for a second straight year is Carter Braxton Worth of Oppenheimer & Co. Worth says his work is based on the principles of collective wisdom, so that he can make market-timing calls using “trend recognition, capital flows and price action.” Sounds complicated, yet one backer hails Worth for his simplicity — and “that’s a compliment. He has just a few tools in his bag, and they’ve worked well.” The strategist’s late February report, “One Heck of a Six-Month Advance,” informed investors that the Standard & Poor’s 500 index had just experienced “a steep, six-month ascent” of 30 percent and that further advances were unsustainable. “The next punctuation mark is imminent,” he declared. He was right. The S&P 500 subsequently fell by more than 9 percent, through August.