Patrick Houghton, 39 years old, of Wheat First Union was the sector's top
stock picker, racking up an estimated 67% return. His results were buoyed
by a 198% jump in shares of World Access, a small-cap company that sells
equipment to upstart carriers in the U.S. and abroad.
Mr. Houghton, an avid hunter, says he likes companies that dominate their
niches within the sector. That is why he continues to recommend Tellabs, a
leading maker of voice and data transport systems, and Cisco Systems, the
computer-networking company. (Telecommunications-equipment analysts
often track companies in the computer-networking industry, though that
sector is a separate category in the All-Star Analysts Survey.)
Greg Mesniaeff, 40, of Robinson-Humphrey, another first-time All-Star,
earned the No. 3 spot with an estimated 36% return. He scored big with
Performance Technologies, a maker of networking products that saw its
stock rocket from $6.44 in January to $19.63 in the fall.
Mr. Mesniaeff, a native New Yorker, favors midcap companies Tellabs and
ADC Telecommunications, which makes equipment for telephone, cable
television, Internet, wireless and private networks. "These companies are in
the process of getting larger but they have not slowed down their growth |
