< The 2014 All-America Research Team

Total Appearances: 3

Analyst Debut: 2012For a second consecutive year, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s Robert Brackett earns the top position on this roster and a runner-up spot in Natural Gas. He continues to be optimistic on the prospects for U.S. exploration and production companies over the longer run, thanks to the growing global population and rising real per capita gross domestic product. These catalysts will ensure that demand stays robust, while the supply side should remain as efficient as ever, the 46-year-old contends. “The sector will continue to grow, and the good companies will continue to create value for investors,” he sums up. In the near term, however, he projects that prices will be flat or decline on both the oil and gas sides, owing to a combination of a mild U.S. summer, liquefied-natural-gas exports that are still years away from fruition and receding geopolitical risk. Consequently, Brackett is being selective and recommending that investors pursue two types of plays. The first is turnaround stories, such as Houston-based Apache Corp. and Canada’s Talisman Energy. “These are companies that are either toward the tail end of reorienting themselves to onshore North America growth or somewhere in the middle of the process,” he explains. The second is gas-focused producers — namely, Houston’s Southwestern Energy Co. and Range Resources Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas — which the analyst favors for the foreseeable future. These companies aren’t as hampered by bottlenecks, he notes, and have strategies in place to move gas via pipeline from production areas like the Marcellus formation in the Northeastern U.S. to various end markets. At the same time, says Brackett, “they’re at the right end of the cost curve because they have low-cost gas they can extract — and lots of it, lots of acres.”