< The 2015 All-Japan Research Team

Total appearances: 12

Team debut: 2004

All-Japan Research Team Hall of Famer Takaaki Yoshino, who prevailed at No. 1 on this roster for nine consecutive years, slips to third place. Even so, the Daiwa Securities Group strategist garners praise for his willingness “to delve into current quantitative topics and examine them,” in the words of one admirer. Yoshino, 49, advises that return on equity has become an increasingly important metric for domestic market participants, citing “a growing awareness that Japanese companies are looking from the standpoints both of good management and of company policy to boost their ROE.” Moreover, he adds, since this measure of profitability “is seen as a proxy for shareholder value,” corporate Japan must improve return on equity to make itself more attractive, given money managers’ growing awareness of shareholder value and the emphasis that foreign investors place on ROE. As a result, the researcher says, companies are “adopting more proactive policies to stimulate ROE growth.” However, choosing names based exclusively on projected or actual ROE is difficult, so Yoshino and his colleagues have developed a strategy, called the P/B-Quality model, which discerns shares that have high valuations and are expected to deliver continuously elevated returns on equity. The framework approaches stock selection in two ways, identifying quality in terms of growth and of sustainability. The former is then combined with the latter to create a quality alpha, he explains.