Timothy Jones & team, Deutsche Bank

The buy side says: “They continue to lead the pack both in their macro views and company forecasts.”

Taking first place for a second straight year, London-based ­Timothy Jones and his Deutsche Bank group of three track 25 stocks and “never rest on their laurels,” as one portfolio manager puts it. Jones, 39, is praised as “repeatedly ahead of the curve — often the first to adjust earnings estimates on changing news,” in the words of another backer. In December 2010 the analysts noted that high raw materials and labor costs, mixed with soft pricing, meant ­Clariant’s earnings had peaked; they rated the Swiss specialty-dye producer a sell at Sf18.99. Sure enough, profits plunged and the stock lost more than half its value, falling to Sf9.27 by the end of last year. Also in December 2010 they elevated Germany’s Linde to top pick for the year ahead, at €109.27, on its exposure to emerging markets and the ­natural-gas subsector. Shares of the ­industrial-gas supplier surged as high as €127.40 in August before settling back to €114.95 at year’s end; even so, the stock beat the sector by 15.1 percentage points.