Masashi Morita Okasan
second team Takeshi Koyama Mizuho
third team Hirotoshi Murakami Mitsubishi UFJ
Masashi Morita, 38, of Okasan Securities Co. takes top honors for a second straight year. A long-term bull on Nintendo Co., Morita highlighted his recommendation in October, at ¥24,050, telling clients that the company’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii would be a big seller during the Christmas season. He was right: More than 4.5 million copies of the game were sold in North America alone in the first two months of release. Nintendo’s stock rose 0.5 percent, to ¥24,170, through February. During the same period the broad market gained just 1.3 percent. “He knows his companies — and their markets — better than anyone else in the business,” cheers one investor.
akeshi Koyama of Mizuho debuts in second place. The analyst upgraded Sega Sammy Holdings to outperform in October, at ¥1,103, as a long-term opportunity based on the pachinko and pachislot machine manufacturer’s growing market share. The stock had slipped to ¥1,097 by late February, a loss of 0.5 percent that trailed the sector by 3.1 points, but Koyama remains bullish.
Unranked last year, Hirotoshi Murakami of Mitsubishi UFJ takes third. Described by one portfolio manager as “a nerd who knows every single tiny piece of pachinko,” Murakami downgraded Sankyo Co. from buy to hold in November, ¥5,070, on declining demand for new pachinko machines. The stock slumped 15.4 percent, to ¥4,290, through February.
