Capturing No. 1 for a second straight year is François Trahan, 44. And despite leaving Wolfe Trahan & Co. to co-found Cornerstone Macro in April, the strategist hasn’t missed a beat. “He makes bold, high-conviction calls — and sticks to his guns,” cheers one admirer. “His theory that what is bad for emerging markets is good for the U.S. has been both original and helpful,” another backer reports. Trahan says that a decoupling of China from the U.S. is well under way and that “China’s pain will be America’s gain” over the next 12 months. The slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy will put the brakes on commodities price inflation in America, he notes, and contribute to noninflationary growth as well as higher price-earnings ratios among domestic U.S. companies. Trahan also predicts that U.S. equities will outperform foreign stocks, boosting small caps over megacaps and domestic cyclical industries over their non-U.S. counterparts. Dividend strategies, however, might well underperform, he concludes, because “P/E ratio–led markets usually leave dividend payers in the dust.” Trahan also earns a runner-up position in Quantitative Research. — Paul Sweeney |
The 2013 All-America Research Team: Portfolio Strategy, No. 1: François Trahan
