< The 2015 All-Japan Research Team

Total appearances: 3

Analyst debut: 2013

After earning the No. 3 spot on this roster in his first two appearances, Keiichi Ito advances to second place. The SMBC Nikko Securities analyst, 45, wins plaudits from one fund manager for “creating a lot of investment ideas not only from quantitative-based analysis but including bottom-up fundamentals research, as well.” One of Ito’s current themes, explained in the 2015 outlook he published in December, focuses on equity spread, or the gap between return on equity and the cost of shareholders’ equity. He concludes that companies with low costs — which reflect the stocks’ risk levels — will be rewarded with high valuations even if they deliver relatively low returns, while those with high costs must achieve returns that surpass their costs if they want to gain market recognition. “Many companies are now seriously thinking about return on equity or other profitability measures, and that’s why so many more buybacks, dividend increases and mergers-and-acquisition activity, including cross-border deals, have been announced,” the researcher explains. Ito also stresses the need for core changes in the Japanese economy, especially deregulation of the lifetime employment rule, which he deems “the biggest reason Japanese companies are not able to change their businesses or organizations quickly.”