Thomas Wong  BofA Merrill Lynch

Global Research

The buy side says: “He makes complex situations easy to understand.”

Leaping from third place to first is Thomas Wong of BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. Wong upgraded CNOOC from neutral to buy in February 2010, at HK$10.70, citing the Beijing-­based oil exploration and production giant’s new deepwater drilling program. In January, after the stock had gushed 61.7 percent, to HK$17.30, and trumped the sector by 31.7 percentage points, he reduced it back to neutral, on valuation. That appears to have been premature; by the end of April, the stock had climbed 10.8 percent further, to HK$19.16. Wong, 37, joined BofA in 2009 from Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, where he was a fund manager. He earned a master’s degree in finance from the ­London ­Business School in 2000.