Earnings estimator awards recognise analysts who have made accurate estimates earlier than their peers. None of the previous year’s top 10 made it into the latest rankings, but the large pool of qualifiers makes it very difficult to appear in consecutive years.

The top performers for 2007 were Sylvain Brunet and Vincent Lépine of the metals and mining team at Exane BNP Paribas. They attribute their success to monitoring costs, as well as commodity supply, demand, prices and trends.