< The 2014 All-America Research TeamNancy LazarCornerstone MacroFirst-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 14

Team debut: 2001Extending her streak in the No. 2 slot to a sixth year, Cornerstone Macro co-founder Nancy Lazar wins particular client praise for her diligence and exhaustive research. “She works really hard,” says one advocate. “She doesn’t just recite the latest figures on employment and inflation — she’ll tell you what’s changing structurally in the economy. She was early, for example, at identifying the renaissance in U.S. manufacturing, and lately she has been doing a nice job of explaining worrying trends in emerging markets and Europe.” For her part, Lazar is projecting that the private U.S. economy will deliver real gross domestic product growth of at least 3 percent through the year-end 2014. “The strength in private GDP has been led by investment not consumption, which is quite a change,” she notes. Describing her views as “quite bearish” on capital spending in emerging markets, including China — where the pace has slowed to 10 percent of GDP this year from a blistering 25 percent in 2008, she emphasizes — Lazar reckons that global capital expenditures will continue to be driven by the revival of U.S. energy and manufacturing sectors. “We now think we’re in the early stages of an American jobs renaissance,” the analyst reports. “Wage gains in manufacturing, energy, transportation and construction have accelerated, highlighting the need for workers.” Over the longer term, she concludes, “the rebound in these industries will be positive for lower- to middle-income workers.”