SECOND TEAM

Hidehiko Hoshino UBS

Hidehiko Hoshino of UBS lands in second place for a second straight year. “He is very competent at forecasting cycles, but his recommendations haven’t worked recently,” notes one loyalist. One example: In January 2010, Hoshino upgraded Omron Corp., a Kyoto-based maker of components for factory automation, from neutral to buy, at ¥1,790. The analyst told clients that demand would rise, especially in China, where labor costs were escalating. In September, after the stock had inched up less than 1 percent, to ¥1,800, but trumped the sector by 14.2 percentage points, Hoshino downgraded Omron back to neutral, on valuation. That was too early, critics say. By late February the stock had shot up 25.8 percent, to ¥2,265, though it lagged the sector by 8.1 percentage points.

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