(SINGAPORE) Life would be so simple if we knew who the good analysts were, analysts whose calls were consistently and profitably spot on.

We could just leave a standing order with the broker and retire to snooze in the Caribbean sun.

Fulfilling favourite fantasies is what awards such as the BT-Starmine awards are for. It's a competition that ranks stock analysts in Singapore and Malaysia according to their excess return last year relative to an industry-based benchmark.

A buy call is simulated by building a dream portfolio that is one unit long on the stock and one unit short on the benchmark. Sells are the reverse - one unit short the stock and one unit long the benchmark. Returns are tabulated and adjusted for different coverage areas.

The fly in the ointment is, as the small print in those dense prospectuses put it, that past performance is not an indicator of future performance. And with the broad selldown in the markets so far this year, investors have been raging against what often seems to be hopelessly inaccurate calls from analysts.

How then is one to fund that beach front villa? How is one to tell the truly great analyst from the merely lucky?

For Citi analyst Low Horng Han, the secret lies in passion - passion to look for data points, passion to stick with non-consensus calls, even if that annoys companies.

'It is important to constantly stress test your assumptions,' he says. 'I feel commitment and passion towards primary research. Passion drives you to search for datapoints and explore new ideas.

'You must also have conviction in your recommendations especially when you present a contrarian view.'

That passion was tested by tough initial years in the industry. The hours were fearsome. But he stuck it out and something obviously must have clicked - Mr Low is this year's top stock picker in Singapore and Malaysia, outperforming his benchmark by 22.9 per cent.

For Steven Tan of CIMB-GK, the key is: 'You have to be opinionated in this line.' He reveals, for example, he dislikes the unspoken requirement that analysts have to be on the job all the time, and 48 hours a day during results season.

So opinionated - but right. He doesn't remember any bad calls recently, he says, when asked. 'Nothing - of late - makes me cringe,' is his reply. 'I always make them to the best of my knowledge and ability, so I don't have any regrets.' No regrets, obviously - he was ranked the top industry earnings estimator for consumer products and number three overall in earnings estimation.

And for Citi property analyst Wendy Koh, one of the top 5 stock pickers, it's all old fashioned 'tenacity, hard work, lots of hard work. And you need the interest and passion about the sector.' Ms Koh says she enjoys getting her hands dirty doing the legwork covering the ground, building contacts and constructing data points. 'Property is probably my favourite,' she says, 'because you can really go hands on in this sector.'

Sometimes, it's just about being in the right place at the right time. That's what happened for Michael Greenall, who in his third year of a degree in agribusiness at the Agricultural University of Malaysia, decided that he was going to be a financial analyst after a juicy internship experience.

He joined Zalik Securities in 1988 - fortuitously just as Malaysia was just coming off a recession and financial analysis was in its infancy. Only three firms had research departments in those days.

Now the head of research and the regional plantation analyst for French-based BNP Paribas in Kuala Lumpur, he was again one of the fortunate few who spotted the big boom in plantations last year - simply because he noticed palm oil alternatives - corn, rapeseed, soy - were all trading at premiums.

So passionate, opinionated, tenacious and lucky. Spot an analyst who's all four and there's your villa.