The Oracle of Omaha retains his pre-eminence as a market visionary, outshining a new wave of financial strategists and the best-known central bankers. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, is regarded as the best assessor of financial markets by a plurality of almost one-fourth of respondents to the quarterly poll of investors, traders and analysts who subscribe to the Bloomberg terminal.

The closest runner-up, Bill Gross, the founder and co- chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co, is chosen by 16%. Billionaire investor George Soros gets 10%, followed by Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who in 2006 predicted the financial crisis, and Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report. Fewer than 1 in 10 cited Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, despite high marks for his performance as a central banker. Only 3% pick Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman.

The other people in the list have their merit, but I think consistency which does not mean total absence of mistakes is the key to rating Buffett, says poll respondent Frederic Bach, 46, a partner and head of fixed- income investments at Falcon Money Management LLP.