Xin Yang  China International Capital Corp.

The buy side says: “Her recommendations are always valuable.”

Xin Yang, 31, of China International Capital Corp. debuts in first place. “She has been particularly good on covering shipping stocks,” notes one buy-side backer. One example: In December, Yang upgraded Cosco Pacific from neutral to buy, at HK$12.66, on the view that shares of the Hong Kong–based shipper were undervalued in light of a turnaround in its terminal operations. The stock had sailed to HK$16.04 by the end of April, a gain of 26.7 percent that left the sector’s 14.5 percent advance in its wake. In March, after the tsunami that struck Japan disrupted marine transportation in the region and sent stock prices plunging, Yang pounded the table on container-­vessel operator SITC ­International ­Holdings Co. of Shanghai, first recommended in December, and urged investors to buy on the dip, at HK$4.05. By the end of April, the stock price had rebounded 18.6 percent, to HK$4.79. Yang joined CICC in 2006 after earning a master’s degree in finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.