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Meredith Adler
Barclays
First-place appearances: 12

Total appearances: 15

Analyst debut: 1999

Barclays analyst Meredith Adler clocks her 15th year on the roster with a 12th straight No. 1 finish. The Hall of Famer, 59, “puts together great monthly overviews,” says one grateful investor. Adler’s long-standing drug chain front-runner is CVS Caremark Corp., favored since June 2003. The Woonsocket, Rhode Island–based outfit “is able to offer its pharmacy-benefit-management customers a bundled set of services that no one else can offer, like in-store clinics and health-condition management,” she explains. In addition, “CVS is not the only drugstore chain that will benefit from health care reform, but it has other businesses — including Medicaid managed care, Medicare Part D coverage and a big and integrated specialty-pharmacy business — that position it well for the changes coming,” she says. Accordingly, Adler named CVS her top stock in December 2011. The shares leaped 55.5 percent, from $37.32 to $58.05, through August 2013, while the sector returned 34.5 percent. No surprise that another booster lauds her “great industry knowledge, good pulse on what moves the needle on stocks and good models.” — Katie Gilbert