Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis (NYSE: NVS) has earned a coveted five-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Novartis' business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Novartis facts

Headquarters (founded) Basel, Switzerland (1895)
Market Cap $141.2 billion
Industry Pharmaceuticals
Trailing-12-Month Revenue $59.1 billion
Management CEO Joseph Jimenez
CFO Jonathan Symonds
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) 16.2%
Cash/Debt $5.4 billion / $24.6 billion
Dividend Yield 4.8%
Competitors Merck
Pfizer
Sanofi

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 97% of the 1,563 members who have rated Novartis believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Just yesterday, one of those Fools, troym72, tapped the stock as an attractive bargain opportunity:

Okay, its getting hard to ignore the fact that the forward P/E is under 10 and the [dividend yield] is now over 4%. I really don't think a person could go wrong with [Novartis] at this point. But, then I have been wrong before. [Novartis] has strategic partnerships (such as the one with [Zalicus]) that appear to be very promising as well.

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