< The 2016 All-Japan Research Team

Total appearances: 19

Team debut: 1996

A runner-up for the past three years, Deutsche Securities’ Yoshinobu Yamada climbs to third place. Since adding two names to his sector portfolio, he now reports on 15 Japanese banks and is considering expanding further in the year ahead. Suruga Bank, a Shizuoka-based consumer finance lender, is the most promising name in the group, the analyst believes. In February he raised his rating on the shares from hold to buy, citing both valuation and the regional player’s relative immunity to the negative interest rates policy the Bank of Japan introduced a week earlier. Suruga’s exposure to central bank holdings is low, he points out, and most of its own loans bear fixed rates that don’t fluctuate with the markets. The stock was trading at ¥1,948 in mid-March — up 6.8 percent since his upgrade and ahead of its domestic peers by 6.4 percentage points. Yamada, 60, projects considerable additional upside, pegging Suruga at ¥2,380. He “is especially skilled at gathering information from banks’ managements,” according to one fund manager.