Analyst rating firm StarMine Corp. has tapped Canaccord Capital’s Sara Elford as Canada’s top stock-picking analyst for 2004.

StarMine’s annual survey measures analysts’ performance based on the return of their stock recommendations and the accuracy of their earnings estimates.

StarMine is a strategic partner of Thomson Financial and utilized the I/B/E/S system as its data source.

StarMine rates Canaccord’s industrial products analyst Elford at the top of the heap, followed by John Clarke, Octagon Capital Corp.’s oil & gas and industrial products analyst, and Doug Cooper, industrial products, retail and food analyst from Paradigm Capital.

StarMine reports that Elford had several profitable recommendations last year, particularly in the industrial sector, where she had a return 62.7% higher than the industry benchmark.

It says that Elford’s best “buy” calls included Badger Income Fund, up 109%, Carmanah Technologies Corp., up 90%, and Newalta Income Fund, up 49%. “She also had a terrific ‘sell’ call on Bennett Environment that she held throughout 2004 during which time the stock was down 84%,” it adds.

Elford was also the top rated stock picker in the industrials industry for the second consecutive year.

The top rated firm in the survey was BMO Nesbitt Burns, followed by RBC Capital Markets, Scotia Capital, CIBC World Markets, Desjardins Securities, National Bank Financial, Canaccord, Credit Suisse First Boston, Sprott Securities and UBS.

Among stock-pickers, Randy Cousins, BMO Nesbitt Burns, ranks fourth; Brian Kristjansen, Dundee Securities Corp., is fifth; sixth place goes to John Hughes, Desjardins Securities; Angela Guo of RBC Capital Markets rates seventh; Dundee’s George Hartman is eighth; Walter Spracklin from RBC is ninth; and, Jason Konzuk, Firstenergy Capital, rounds out the top 10.

The other ranking the firm produces looks at the accuracy of analysts’ earnings estimates. CSFB mining analyst, David Gagliano, rated first overall on that count. He was followed by RBC health care analyst Philippa Flint, and Canaccord health care analyst Prakash Gowd. CIBC’s Barry Cooper rated fourth; followed by Brian Dutton, UBS; Randal Rudniski, CSFB; Sean Steuart, TD Newcrest; BMO’s Stephen Atkinson; Kevin Choquette from Scotia; and, Steve Arthur, RBC Capital Markets.