| | Roderick Bourgeois | Sanford C.
Bernstein & Co. | First-place appearances: 8 Total appearances: 11 Analyst debut: 2002 | Reigning supreme for an eighth straight year is Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s Roderick Bourgeois. The 44-year-old “analyst’s analyst,” as one fan calls him, has upped his coverage list by one name since last year, for a total of ten. His view of the group has soured, he reports, for a variety of reasons. Among them: cyclical challenges in Brazil, Japan and Southern Europe for management consulting services provider Accenture; and potential difficulties that offshore outfits, particularly Indian information technology services companies, can expect from changes to U.S. employment visa laws. He has “been out in front of the immigration reform effects on offshore services vendors,” applauds another booster. “The impact of these reforms could range from onerous to very significantly disruptive,” Bourgeois contends. Even so, he favors Dublin’s Accenture and India-focused Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. of Teaneck, New Jersey. Both are poised to capitalize on the services needed for their clients to move to cloud computing, he believes, and neither will likely be replaced by the cloud outright. But he cautions that investing in either stock will require considerable patience. — Pam Baker |
