Equity analyst professionals have the attention of investors after the worst year for equity returns in the US since 2008. It pays to pay attention to these analysts that can find pockets of significant return in a chaotic bear market.
Mike Kozak, Equity Research Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald
Mike Kozak is an Equity Research Analyst and has been covering the Metals & Mining sector since 2007. He joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 2016.
Mr. Kozak holds a BASc degree in Mining & Mineral Process Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and prior to joining the financial services sector, worked in various technical roles for Fording Canadian Coal, Teck Resources, and Barrick Gold.
In December of 2021, Mr. Kozak recommended BHP, the large cap Australian mining company: “BHP (NYSE:BHP) is the world’s largest diversified miner. It has a 12% dividend and is trading around 30% below its highs on the year.”
The stock spun out its oil and gas drilling subsidiary into Woodside Energy giving investors shares in that company as well, a “twofer” in 2022 that has returned large double digit gains on the investment to date.
Phil Skolnick, Managing Director, Eight Capital
Phil Skolnick is Managing Director, Equity Research, and Senior Oil & Gas Analyst at Canada’s Eight Capital. He formerly was Managing Director and head of global energy research at Canaccord Genuity.
He singled out InPlay, with a current dividend yield of over 6%, and PetroTal as two small independent oil and gas exploration and production companies as ones investors should buy in early February 2022.
Benjamin Nolan, CFA, Managing Director in the Transportation sector, Stifel Financial
In his February 2022 interview, Ben Nolan noted that natural gas, and specifically liquefied natural gas, would be the key energy input far beyond the short term. Mr. Nolan is a Managing Director in the Transportation sector, covering Shipping and Energy Infrastructure at Stifel Financial Corp.
“…You do have a lot of developing economies, various places around the world — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, even China — where their power consumption is going up a lot.
They’ve got to figure out how they’re going to meet those demands and the cleanest and, generally, one of the cheapest methods of being able to do that is with natural gas.
Now, it’s not carbon free. So perhaps you could argue that it’s just a bridge fuel, but if it is a bridge fuel, it’s a multi-decade bridge fuel.”
Dr. Kumaraguru Raja, Senior Biotech Analyst, Brookline Capital Markets.
Switching from natural resources to natural sciences, Dr. Kumaraguru Raja is a Senior Biotech Analyst at Brookline Capital Markets.
Previously, he was Vice President, Biotechnology Research at Noble Life Science Partners. He started his equity research career in 2010 as a Senior Associate Analyst on the Citi Research biotechnology team.
Dr. Raja noted in his March 2022 interview that many biotechs had raised enough capital: “…These companies are actually sitting on a lot of cash, which will provide them with a runway for at least one to two years.
And they don’t have to worry about the high cost of capital, at least for the next one or two years.”
Lisa Ellis, Senior Analyst, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., U.S. computer services and IT consulting.
Lisa Ellis is a partner and Senior Managing Director at MoffettNathanson LLC. She leads the Payments, Processors, and IT Services business.
In her April 2022 interview, Ms. Ellis touted that most hated of categories, cryptocurrency technology. Her recommendations may be just what the devoted contrarian investor requires.
Haendel Emmanuel St. Juste, Managing Director and Senior REITs Analyst, Mizuho Securities USA LLC.
Haendel Emmanuel St. Juste is Managing Director and Senior REITs Analyst at Mizuho Securities USA LLC.
He joined Mizuho in early 2016, having spent the previous 15 years on Wall Street, with platforms including Morgan Stanley, UBS and Green Street, focused exclusively on the REIT sector.
His May 2022 interview specifies a certain type of real estate investment as the best for our current position in the economic cycle.
“We’re still constructive on REITs, we’re just of the view that you need to be increasingly selective.
There’s more value out there.
We like names and sectors where there is pricing power and ability to offset some of the rising costs, where you are still seeing good demand, and I think we touched on a lot of that with residential and with shopping centers.”
Vijay Kumar, Senior Managing Director, Evercore ISI
Vijay Kumar is a Senior Managing Director on Evercore ISI’s Healthcare Services & Technology Research Team, primarily focusing on the medical supplies and devices and life science tools subsector.
“Medtronic has had some recent setbacks on the new product pipeline side. And most of it is either about unfortunate timing, or a communication sort of issue.
Yet the underlying fundamentals remain very strong.”
Business development companies or BDCs are a small but high yielding stock sector.
Casey Alexander, Senior Vice President – Research Analyst, Compass Point Research & Trading, LLC
Casey Alexander is a Senior Vice President – Research Analyst with Compass Point Research & Trading, LLC covering business development companies, which he has been following since 2009.
“Barings BDC…is managed by almost a unique team. They operate more in the traditional middle market.
But it’s managed by Barings Asset Management, which has over $300 billion in assets under management.
They manage the general account for their parent company MassMutual.
They have a far more bespoke method of investing and therefore the loans that they invest in, they have less competition for, are able to create better terms, better yields and, in general, a better total return.”
Tore Svanberg, Analyst and Managing Director, Stifel Financial Corp.
Tore Svanberg is an analyst and managing director at Stifel Financial Corp.
He joined the company with the acquisition of Thomas Weisel Partners LLC in 2010.
He is part of the technology group, covering semiconductors with a focus on analog, connectivity and processor semiconductors.
He has been recognized for his work by The Wall Street Journal’s “Best on the Street” Analyst Survey.
“I think the markets that are perhaps more interesting for semiconductor companies would be automotive. There’s obviously a lot of electronic content growth happening in the automotive market.”
Michael E. Hoffman, Managing Director and Group Head of Diversified Industrials Research, Stifel Financial Corp.
Michael E. Hoffman joined Stifel Financial Corp. in 2014.
Based out of the Baltimore office, Mr. Hoffman is a Managing Director and Group Head of Diversified Industrials Research, covering solid/industrial/medical waste, pest control and specialty distribution.
Hartaj Singh, Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Biotechnology at Oppenheimer & Co.
Hartaj Singh is Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Biotechnology at Oppenheimer & Co. His top biotech stock recommendation has returned over 30% since his August interview:
“…We have a “buy” on Gilead.
And we have one of the highest price targets on it.
And it’s just human psychology that if things are not looking good in the outside world, you will generally tend to go to areas or stocks that are safer. So you’ll avoid higher-risk stocks. And in that kind of an environment, the larger caps look very good.”
Richard Safran is Managing Director and an Analyst at Seaport Research Partners
Richard Safran is Managing Director and an Analyst at Seaport Research Partners.
He is an aerospace and defense equity research analyst and former aerospace engineer and program manager.
He started his professional career working at Northrop Grumman on the B-2 program.
“Russia was a major supplier of titanium to the U.S. aerospace industry and that’s not going to be any more, and aerospace OEMs are now going to have to domestically source titanium and titanium parts.
Well, that goes squarely to ATI.
People are looking for small/mid-cap stocks that are a derivative call on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. industry de-risking from Russia, well then, ATI fits that bill.”
Nikhil Devnani, CFA, Analyst, Bernstein
Nikhil Devnani, CFA, is an Analyst at Bernstein covering U.S. Emerging Internet, a variety of marketplaces across e-commerce, food delivery, ridesharing and housing.
Mr. Devnani joined Bernstein in 2016 as Research Associate on U.S. Large-Cap Banks and contributed to the team’s No. 1 ranking by Institutional Investor in 2017 and 2018.
His September 2022 interview has some eye opening recommendations.
“My top stock recommendation is actually outside the world of e-commerce right now. So, it’s Uber.
And why Uber? A couple of things.
One is, I think there’s not a lot of very clean stories in internet and probably in a lot of sectors right now.
But when I think about the relative trends, Uber is benefiting from this tailwind of people moving around again, which continues to take place.”
Mike Polark, CFA, Director and Senior Analyst, Wolfe Research
Mike Polark, CFA, is a Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research, LLC covering the medical device industry.
Mr. Polark joined Wolfe Research after nearly 10 years with Baird.
“In large-cap land, I like Boston Scientific.
I cover a series of these medical device bellwethers, I call them — you know, multi category companies that do a lot of stuff. Boston, for me, has been the Goldilocks option — not too hot, not too cold, just right.
And they’re a leader in minimally invasive medicine, so they have a huge portfolio of minimally invasive solutions for specialties like cardiovascular, urology, oncology, electrophysiology.”
Ralph M. Profiti, CFA, Principal, Metals & Mining equity research at Eight Capital
Ralph M. Profiti, CFA, is a Principal focused on Metals & Mining equity research at Eight Capital, covering Senior North American Industrial Metals and Precious Metals companies and commodities.
His November 2022 interview is timely for investors looking to put money to work in 2023.
“In copper, my favorite stock is Freeport (NYSE:FCX). I like Freeport because of its strategic position in the copper peer group as it pertains to, again, having strong balance sheet liquidity. It can have positive free cash flow even at lower copper prices than where we are now.”
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