< The 2014 All-America Research TeamEdward KellyCredit SuisseFirst-place appearances: 0
Total appearances: 6
Team debut: 2009For a sixth consecutive year, Edward Kelly of Credit Suisse captures second place. His research is unique, one portfolio manager says, because “Ed provides third-party data on volume and price trends that others do not.” Another fan chimes in to praise Kelly’s “solid, to-the-point assessments.” For his part, Kelly says that tight competition and inflated valuations among food and drug retailers give him pause on the group as a whole. Accordingly, he adds, “we are mostly focused on stocks that have good company-specific drivers to upside and differentiated, traffic-centric models.” One example of such a player, he says, is Pleasanton, California–based Safeway. Deeming its shares undervalued — and heartened by the retailer’s new management, aggressive share-repurchase plan and streamlining through the divestiture of its Canadian business and spin-off of its BlackHawk Network Holdings gift cards unit — he upgraded the shares from underperform to outperform. That was in mid-September 2013, and a year later, Safeway’s stock had leaped 48.5 percent, to $34.24, beating its peers by 35.4 percentage points.