< The 2014 All-America Research Team
Tien-Tsin Huang
J.P. Morgan
First-Place Appearances: 1
Total Appearances: 7
Analyst Debut: 2008
After holding the No. 2 position on this list for five consecutive years, Tien-Tsin Huang steps up to claim his first top finish. Contributing to Huang’s rise are his “very strong knowledge of the inner workings of the services names,” in the words of one fund manager, and his stock-picking abilities. “When Cognizant [Technology Solutions] was lowering numbers last year,” another advocate recalls, “he defended the stock and suggested adding to the name — a timely call that netted 40 percent returns.” The 39-year-old analyst joined J.P. Morgan in 1997 upon graduating from the University of Virginia with a bachelor of science degree in commerce. He now monitors 27 U.S. computer services and information technology solutions names. “We have a favorable view of the sector,” says Huang, “as various issues have weighed on stock sentiment, causing rare underperformance year to date. But we believe underlying secular trends remain solid.” Indeed, the group slipped 2.2 percent in 2014 through mid-September, while the broad market rose 7.3 percent. Given their exposure to merchants’ increasing use of mobile systems, his top picks are payment processors Vantiv of Cincinnati and San Jose, California–based VeriFone Systems. The respective price objectives he sets for the shares, $42 and $41, represent premiums of 34.1 percent and 11.5 percent to their mid-September trading values. “Looking to next year,” the analyst adds, “we like the networks — that is, Visa and MasterCard — as headwinds should fade and capital deployment should stay strong to deliver at least high-teens organic [earnings-per-share] growth.”