Takaaki Yoshino Daiwa
second team Hiromichi Tamura Nomura
third team Shun Maruyama Credit Suisse
Daiwa’s Takaaki Yoshino, who extends his reign to a fifth consecutive year, “is very good at applying academic financial theory to real markets,” according to one portfolio manager. One example: Yoshino, 44, published a study in June analyzing earnings volatility and its impact on stock returns. Noting that share prices reflect expectations of future profits, Yoshino found that when the volatility of returns exceeds the volatility of earnings, “the effect will be positive, reflecting the expectation that stock risk will exceed that of corporate earnings.” The opposite effect is seen when return volatility is less than earnings volatility, Yoshino found.
Hiromichi Tamura jumps from runner-up all the way to second place. “The depth of his research is probably the deepest among brokers here,” observes one Tokyo-based money manager. In January the Nomura strategist published a report in which he predicted that the factor return of price-to-book ratios would turn positive while the factor return of price-to-earnings ratio would remain flat, meaning that stocks with low P/B ratios would outperform stocks with high P/B ratios. “It is almost the end of the first quarter, and my estimation for P/B and P/E was almost correct: B/P outperformed, and P/E factor return was almost flat,” he says.
Shun Maruyama of Credit Suisse repeats in third place. Using a proprietary tool that divides a company’s free cash flow by its total assets, Maruyama zeroed in on three stocks to recommend in last April’s report: nonbank lender Orix, which skyrocketed 104.8 percent through February; automaker Nissan, up 83.1 percent; and photo equipment manufacturer FujiFilm Holdings Corp., up 27.3 percent. “His style cannot be found in any other broker,” cheers one happy client.
