| Barclays’s Meredith Adler, 58, lands at No. 1 for an 11th consecutive year. “Dollar stores, which serve the low end very conveniently, and healthy living companies, which serve a specific niche of consumers, will both generally fare well,” she believes, whereas “mature retailers in food and drug are more likely to be under some pressure.” The All-America Research Team Hall of Famer upgraded Family Dollar Stores from equal weight to overweight in October 2011, at $53.90, citing the Matthews, North Carolina–based discount retailer’s growth prospects. In June, after the stock had jumped 35.2 percent, to $72.85, and beat the sector by 18.1 percentage points, she moved it back to equal weight. Later that month the company reported that earnings per share for its fiscal third quarter, which ended in May, fell just short of consensus expectations, at $1.06. By late August the stock had tumbled 12.6 percent, to $63.43. “Her background as a high-yield analyst brings a perspective that many equity analysts lack,” observes one booster. |
Consumer – Retailing/Food & Drug Chains: First
October 16, 2012
