Steven Alexopoulos J.P. Morgan

J.P. Morgan’s Steven Alexopoulos rises from runner-up to third place. “Steve was one of the first to publish on the troubled banks and the effects of federal assistance, which led to value-added nonconsensus calls,” recalls one advocate. In June 2009, Alexopoulos upgraded Comerica from neutral to overweight, at $20.78, on the belief that federal loans to General Motors Corp. would bolster the Dallas-based lender’s core market. He was right. The bank subsequently posted better-than-expected results, and the stock had soared to $34.41 by late August 2010, a whopping 65.6 percent gain that bested the sector by 29.6 percentage points.