Total appearances: 3
Team debut: 2012
Rocketing from runner-up all the way to second place is J.P. Morgan’s Kenneth Goldman. While holding a mixed view on the immediate prospects for U.S. food names, the researcher believes that his sector holds “pockets of strong growth” — in the organic products segment, for example — for investors that know where to look. One food company he suggests clients should prefer is Mead Johnson Nutrition Co., a Glenview, Illinois–based producer of infant formula and other children’s nutrition products. “The consumer is demanding more product every year,” notes Goldman, and in September 2013 he elevated the stock from neutral to buy, predicting that earnings growth would accelerate faster than the Street expected. That’s indeed what the year cooked up, and a year after his upgrade, Mead Johnson’s stock had jumped 29.1 percent, to $96.62, besting the sector by 16.5 percentage points. Goldman is “one of the analysts who calls things like he sees them and isn’t afraid to speak the truth on his names,” insists one money manager.