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After two years at No. 2, William Greene Jr. of Morgan Stanley slips to third, but he maintains a loyal following. “The amount of data he presents is almost unbelievable,” marvels one investor. “There’s not only a lot of detail about what happened but also bullet-point overviews telling you how to be positioned going forward.” Greene, who also leads the lineup in Airfreight & Surface Transportation, rates Atlanta’s Delta Air Lines and United Continental Holdings, Chicago-based parent company of United Airlines, as long-term buys on the strength of their strong balance sheets, capacity restraint and “relatively attractive” valuations, among other factors. He is bearish on JetBlue Airways Corp., however. The New York–based outfit “lacks the leverage of its peers, faces cost inflation, and risks labor unionization,” Greene explains. “Although the company shares these headwinds with other low-cost carriers, it lacks tangible offsetting positives. Thus, we believe investors will increasingly price JetBlue as a legacy-like carrier.” RUNNER(S)-UP Kevin Crissey UBS Glenn Engel Bank of America Merrill Lynch Hunter Keay Wolfe Trahan & Co. |
Consumer – Airlines: Third