Lucy Feng  Nomura

The buy side says: “She provides great investment calls.”

We divided the Financials sector this year into Banks and Insurance, and topping the roster in the Banks sector is Lucy Feng, a runner-up last year in the predecessor category. At 39, the analyst — who earned an MBA from Ohio State University in 2000 and moved to Nomura in January 2010 from Deutsche Bank, where she worked as co-head of financial services research for Asia ex-­Japan and head of China financials research — is praised for “her intimate knowledge of the dynamics of the banking industry in China and her contacts within the industry,” as one portfolio manager puts it. In August, Feng initiated coverage with a buy on ­Agricultural Bank of China, at HK$3.47, on the belief that the financial services firm, which is headquartered in Beijing, was well-­positioned to benefit from China’s rapidly expanding agribusiness sector. By the end of April, the lender’s stock had grown a healthy 32.6 percent, to HK$4.60, and overshadowed the sector by 23.8 percentage points.