THIRD TEAM Timothy Conder Wells Fargo Securities
Timothy Conder of Wells Fargo Securities, who repeats in third place, “has a great understanding of what moves the leisure sector stocks,” according to one buy-side enthusiast. One example: Citing pricing improvements, carryover cost savings, a share-repurchase program, modest rises in valuation, strong free cash flow and “prudent deployment” of excess capital, the St. Louis–based analyst upgraded Mattel from neutral to outperform in late July 2010, at $19.94. Thirteen months later shares of the El Segundo, California–based toy maker were up 34.8 percent, to $26.87, and were ahead of the sector by 7.4 percentage points.