Last year saw a plethora of market sea changes — but the top global sell-side research firms were there to help institutional investors steady the ship.
“2022 presented many challenges for markets,” said Hussein Malik, co-head of global research for JPMorgan Chase & Co. “With persistent inflation, central bank tightening, the war in Ukraine, the rise in energy prices, and the decline in market liquidity, 2022 was a challenging year for markets. As goal posts moved across many of these key drivers for markets, our researchers had to adjust their thinking to provide their best ideas to clients.”
It was a year of “transition,” according to BofA Securities’ head of global research Candace Browning. “You started the year with very low interest rates, and high growth. You ended the year with lower growth, and higher interest rates, and higher inflation,” she said. “I think that it was a year that was characterized by changes in the macro environment, which obviously presented a lot of challenges, but it also presented opportunities. It was a year of enormous change.”
Morgan Stanley’s global director of research Katy Huberty concurred. “Macro dominated markets, but our strategists had the right market call heading into the year,” she said. “As a result, our sector analysts were able to focus more closely on the trajectories of their industries and companies coming out of the pandemic — which trends were likely to revert, and which elements have permanently shifted.”
Despite — or maybe because of — this volatility, the buy-side has stuck with a cadre of top firms in Institutional Investor’s 2022 ranking of the Global Research Leaders, which recognizes the sell-side research providers with the highest combined total number of positions earned across II’s annual equity, fixed-income, and developed and emerging markets surveys.
The 2022 Global Research Leaders ranking lists sell-side research providers by the combined total number of positions earned across Institutional Investor’s 2022 research team surveys: the All-America Research Team; the Asia (ex-Japan) Research Team; the China Research Team; the Developed Europe Research Team; the Japan Research Team; the Emerging EMEA Research Team; the Latin America Research Team; and the Global Fixed-Income Research Team.
Results of each survey are published separately throughout the year, beginning in March 2022 with the Japan Research Team and concluding in January 2023 with the China Research Team. Rankings for each poll are determined strictly by using numerical scores. We take the number of votes awarded to each firm in a sector and weight it in relation to the size of the institution responding and rating it awarded. Firms are designated runners-up when their scores fall within 35 percent of the third-place scores. Please see the methodology associated with each survey for additional information.
The names of those surveyed are kept confidential to ensure their continuing cooperation. Voters must meet eligibility requirements, and winners must achieve a minimum vote count.