The 2013 All-China Research Team: Consumer/Nondiscretionary, Second: Bing Qian

Capturing second place in his first appearance on this list is China International Capital Corp. researcher Bing Qian, who also debuts at No. 2 in the Consumer/Discretionary sector. Qian is sour on the prospects for Hong Kong–based Belle International Holdings, a women’s footwear retailer that has stores across 150 cities on the mainland, as well as outlets in Hong Kong, Macau and the U.S. The Beijing-based analyst downgraded Bell from buy to neutral in July, forecasting that the company’s earnings growth would fall short of expectations and that it would continue to suffer from the headwinds buffeting China’s retailing landscape more broadly. The shares were then down 36.6 percent year to date, in line with the retailing subsector’s performance, and through October they inched up 2.6 percent, to HK$10.94, trailing consumer staples names by 13.1 percentage points and retailers generally by 10 percentage points. — Katie Gilbert