< The 2015 All-America Research Team
Timothy Conder
Wells Fargo Securities
First-place appearances: 0
Total appearances: 11
Analyst debut: 2005
Repeating in third place, and notching his fourth appearance in this spot since 2010, is Wells Fargo Securities’ Timothy Conder. From his base in St. Louis, the analyst monitors 17 U.S. leisure players. “Tim is especially skilled at translating deep industry insights and financial forecasts into great stock picks — plus, he’s the nicest guy in the business,” affirms one portfolio manager. Conder, 50, also wins praise from the buy side for his coverage of Pawtucket, Rhode Island–based Hasbro, the U.S.’s No. 2 toymaker and owner of the well-known Mr. Potato Head, Nerf and Transformers toys, as well as such popular board games as Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit. Until this summer he had long deemed the manufacturer an outperformer, spurred by several new product launches, but he reduced his rating on Hasbro to market perform in July, on valuation. The stock had raced up 61.1 percent during the preceding 12 months, beating U.S. leisure names broadly by 50.9 percentage points. Subsequently, it slipped 6.8 percent, closing at $77.06 in mid-September and lagging its peers by 3.6 percentage points. Looking ahead, the researcher prefers El Segundo, California’s Mattel, the No. 1 American toymaker, on the improved monetization of such brands as Barbie dolls, Fisher-Price, Hot Wheels and Matchbox. In April he upgraded his rating on the producer from market perform to outperform, and as of mid-September, Mattel’s shares had slipped 6.3 percent, to $23.04. During the same period, the sector rose by less than 1 percent and the S&P 500 fell 7.1 percent. Conder forecasts that the stock could climb as high as $30.