2015 All-America Research Team: Alternative Energy, No. 2: Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

UBS

First-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 1

Analyst debut: 2015

Appearing on this lineup for the first time,Julien Dumoulin-Smithclaims second place — the same spot he holds on the Electric Utilities roster for a second year running — impressing clients with his broad perspective. UBS’s researcher “offers some of the most comprehensive alternative energy research on the Street and approaches it from an electric utility perspective, which is important,” attests one fund manager. “Research without context isn’t worth much.” Dumoulin-Smith, 30, earned a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from New York’s Columbia University in 2007 — with triple minors in economics, environmental engineering and political science — and joined UBS in July of that year. Buy-siders named him a Rising Star of Wall Street Research in 2010 through 2012 for his coverage of U.S. electric utilities names, and he earned his first position on the All-America Research Team in 2014. This year he also completed an MBA at the Columbia Business School. Keeping tabs on the regulatory front, Dumoulin-Smith believes that the Obama administration’s recently finalized Clean Power Plan to fight pollution and address climate change “should provide opportunities for investments tied to both natural gas and, increasingly, renewables, including both wind and solar.” Declining costs of renewables are likely to “accelerate the penetration of these generation sources in the overall fuel mix,“ he adds. His top pick is Juno Beach, Florida–based NextEra Energy. As a leading global generator of solar and wind power, this provider is among the best-positioned utilities when it comes to large-scale renewables, the researcher believes. His price objective of $115 suggests an 18.2 percent premium to the share price at the middle of last month.