Timothy Luke Barclays Capital

Timothy Luke of Barclays Capital “is constantly picking up data points, interpreting them and making them investable,” explains one portfolio manager. Luke, in second place for a third year running, upgraded Irvine, California–based Broadcom Corp. from neutral to overweight in September 2009, at $29.64, arguing in favor of the chip maker’s improving margins and exposure to multiple end-user markets, including communications infrastructure and data storage. The stock price had surpassed $38 by July but then began to fall; by the end of the following month, it had ended up at $29.96 — pretty much where it started when Luke recommended the shares. Still, they outperformed the sector by 7.3 percentage points over the period, and the analyst remains bullish.