SECOND TEAM Ross Muken Deutsche Bank Securities
Deutsche Bank Securities’ Ross Muken, who works out of San Francisco and “is always on the cutting edge,” according to one buy-side backer, advances one level to the second tier. In January, Muken advised investors to buy Thermo Fisher Scientific, an analytical-device manufacturer and diagnostic-software developer headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, on the belief that the company’s further expansion in China — it had opened a technology center in Shanghai in August 2010 — would boost growth and profitability. Thermo Fisher announced plans in March to build a manufacturing facility in Suzhou, and in July the company reported that year-over-year revenue in its second quarter, which ended July 2, had surged 11.6 percent, to a record $2.9 billion. The stock, at $56.72 at the time of Muken’s recommendation, climbed as high as $65.57 in early July before getting caught in market downdrafts; by the end of August, it had fallen to $54.93, for a loss of 3.2 percent that nonetheless beat the sector by 5.6 percentage points. Muken remains bullish.