These Are the Best Market Strategists in the U.S.

(Bloomberg) -- Dennis DeBusschere, who left Evercore ISI this year to start an independent research shop, was ranked as the best U.S. portfolio strategist in the latest Institutional Investor survey.

His 22V Research firm is a homage to his father, Dave DeBusschere -- a basketball hall-of-famer who played for the New York Knicks under number 22. In the II ranking, DeBusschere is followed by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Dubravko Lakos-Bujas and Mike Wilson at Morgan Stanley.

Lakos-Bujas also took the first spot in quantitative research, while his colleague Marko Kolanovic won the first place in equity-linked strategies.

In a newly added class for environmental, social and governance research, the top honor went to Bank of America Corp.’s strategist Savita Subramanian.

JPMorgan’s stock analysts topped the leaderboard of the country’s best financial researchers for the sixth consecutive year, edging out Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.

Evercore, ranked the No. 3 in 2020, was bumped down to the fourth place. Ed Hyman, the firm’s founder, however, was picked as the top economist -- a title he has earned 41 times in the 50-year history of the Institutional Investor’s all-America equity research survey. The firm’s chartist, Rich Ross, won out as the No. 1 technical analyst.  

Wolfe Research jumped to No. 6 behind UBS Group AG, after cracking the top 10 for the first time last year. The firm’s strategist, Chris Senyek, was voted as the best on accounting and tax policy. 

This year’s ranking tallied ratings from 3,565 portfolio managers and analysts at 1,475 institutions.

Investors have increasingly resorted to equity analysts for economic and market analysis to help navigate the uncertain post-pandemic world. According to a recent study from Coalition Greenwich, buy-side spending on payments for trade execution and research jumped 11% from a year earlier in the 12 months through March. That was the first gain in at least five years. 

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