Above the Fray; Last year's most successful analysts guided clients out of the market
It's the rare and brave stock analyst who tells clients to sell their shares of a company's stock. With stocks down last year in all 10 of the markets covered in The Wall Street Journal survey of Asia's Best Analysts, those are the analysts who made money for their clients.</br></br>The other winners in the second annual survey found the stocks that bucked the trends and rose last year. And sectors that had languished during rising markets suddenly became popular with investors, putting the long-ignored analysts in the spotlight.</br></br>The Asia's Best Analysts survey is based on a quantitative analysis of stock picks by more than 1,500 analysts at 129 firms in Asia, looking at the performance of their buys, holds and sells and comparing them with one another and with the market overall. The findings produce three top analysts each for 10 countries and territories and 21 market sectors to give investors a guide to which analysts had the most success picking winning stocks among the companies they cover.</br></br>Among the firms in the survey, some big names did well. Bank of AmericaMerrill Lynch came out on top among the 42 winning firms with nine top-three finishers, while Credit Suisse had seven. The survey also highlights analysts at small firms such as South Korea's KTB Investment & Securities.</br></br>Winners were selected based on data assembled by FactSet, a U.S. company that tracks analysts' recommendations and earnings estimates. To be eligible, analysts generally had to have followed at least five stocks in an industry group, or country or territory during the year.