Mary Ann Bartels BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research
Mary Ann Bartels of BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research slips one level to the third team, after having spent the past two years in second place. At the beginning of May — one week after the Standard & Poor’s 500 index hit a 52-week high, as it turned out — she predicted the market had topped out for the year, citing valuations and her surveys of investor sentiment. Subsequently, the market plunged 11.6 percent, through August. “She always gives you a quick picture of what is happening and where things will go,” avows one devotee.
