AMERICA'S MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES

Top 20 Most Admired Companies

To create the top 20 for our 25th annual rankings, Fortune and its survey partners at Hay Group asked 3,322 executives, directors, and securities analysts to select the 10 companies they admire most. Having fresh ideas and being green are among the qualities that distinguish this year's winners.

Costco Wholesale
BACK NEXT 18 of 20
Costco Wholesale
Top 20 Rank: 18
While Wal-Mart stands for low prices and Target embodies cheap chic, Costco is a retail treasure hunt, where one's shopping cart could contain a $50,000 diamond ring resting on top of a 64-ounce vat of mayonnaise.

Costco refuses to mark up any item more than 14%, in contrast to supermarkets and department stores, which often carry markups of 25% and 50%, respectively. "We always look to see how much of a gulf we can create between ourselves and the competition," CEO Jim Sinegal told Fortune last year.

More: See how Costco rates in 8 key areas.


GE
Starbucks
Toyota
Berkshire
Southwest
FedEx
Apple
Google
J&J
P&G
Goldman
Microsoft
Target
3M
Nordstrom
UPS
AmEx
Costco
PepsiCo
Wal-Mart
More
Full list
Full list
See how 306 top companies rate in 8 key areas, plus post your thoughts on our Most Admired Companies blog. (more)
Target's fashion statement
Target's fashion statement
Here's a look at some of the looks behind Proenza Schouler for Target, no. 13 on America's Most Admired list. (more)
Toyota's all-American ads
Toyota's all-American ads
From Elvis to Beyoncé: How Toyota, no. 3 on Fortune's list of America's Most Admired Companies, keeps rolling. (more)
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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.

Contact Us Closed Captioning Manage Cookies+ Site Map

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.