Craig Moffett
Craig Moffett Sanford C. Bernstein
SECOND TEAM
Vijay Jayant Barclays
THIRD TEAM
Benjamin Swinburne Morgan Stanley
RUNNERS-UP
Jason Bazinet Citi ; Jessica Reif Cohen Merrill Lynch
Hailed by one investor as the most “in-depth analyst on the Street,” Craig Moffett of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. is No. 1 for a third consecutive year. Moffett, 46, broke with the consensus in January and urged clients to move out of “recession-sensitive” telecommunications stocks and into more-resilient offerings, such as cable TV services provider Cablevision Systems Corp. of Bethpage, New York. The share price had shot up 26.8 percent by mid-September, outperforming the sector by 32.4 percentage points. Vijay Jayant, who moved to Barclays Capital after its parent acquired Lehman Brothers last month, repeats in second place. He has “an equally strong grip on the big picture and the minute details,” proclaims one portfolio manager. Jayant upgraded DirecTV Group to buy in January, at $21.58, declaring that the El Segundo, California–based programming distributor’s high-definition offerings would attract customers and reduce subscriber churn. The stock had jumped 27.8 percent, to $27.59, by mid-September. Benjamin Swinburne of Morgan Stanley debuts in third place. Dubbed by one buy-side enthusiast “a master at aggregating many disparate data points into a cohesive and cogent view of the media universe,” Swinburne upgraded Comcast Corp. in December, at $18.18, on strong growth prospects for the Philadelphia-based cable services provider. By mid-September the stock was up 19.4 percent, to $21.71.
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