Analyst Rankings: Lean Times, but There's Demand for Restaurants

This week, in our focus on the winning analysts in each industry category from our Analyst Rankings -- Equity 2000, we profile the top analysts tracking restaurants. Next week we'll look at packaged foods. (Our last focus was on casinos and gaming.)

The economy may be slowing, but that shouldn't hurt the restaurant sector, according to our top two ranked analysts.

In busy two-career families, dining out is increasingly seen less as an extravagance that can be done away with in lean times than as a necessary convenience that offers a certain kind of value in the time it saves. This, anyway, is the view of No. 1-ranked Peter Oakes of Merrill Lynch. ...