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The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: Companies With The Worst News (6/30)

247wallst — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:04:03 +0000

Battles with the US government hurt several stocks. Raymond James will pay $300 million for disputes over auction rate securities. Monsanto is under investigation for potential illegal payments to customers. HealthSouth was charged for false Medicare claims. New York City wants $600 million back from SAIC for faulty payroll systems

The Flame Index started as a research tool in 2008 at the NY Innovation Design Lab (nyidlab). It was used as a general metric to evaluate companies and their risk in the media. Publicly traded Fortune 500 companies are used as a measure to calculate an overall market of negative news and the companies are ranked within that market.

Rank	Company	Ticker	Score	Change in Rank	Comments
11	Raymond James Financial	RJF	28.867	+274	Settles with SEC for bad behavior with auction rate paper. $300 million hit.
13	Monsanto	MON	27.749	+400	Big profit, but SEC look at sales incentives for customers
18	HealthSouth	HLS	25.784	+177	Charged with false Medicare claims
19	BJ’s Wholesale Club	BJ	25.514	+354	Sold to private parties
21	Freddie Mac	FRE	25.128	+302	More concern about liquidation
33	Computer Sciences	CSC	21.082	+115	Legal claims management misrepresented company’s financial situation
34	Apple	AAPL	20.571	+103	Suit by Samsung over patents
37	Philip Morris International	PM	20.147	+119	Australians want harsh warnings on cigarette labels
44	SAIC	SAI	19.116	+257	New York City claims it should get back $600 million for flawed payroll system
47	Ameren	AEE	18.731	+152	S&P questions value of shares

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

Filed under: General, Research Tagged: AAPL, AEE, BJ, CSC, HLS, MON, PM, RJF, SAI

Top 10 Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (ATU, BP, GLW, ENOC, HLS, ITMN, MU, NWS, SNDK, RIG)

Administrator — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:44:32 +0000

These are some of this Thursday morning’s top analyst research calls seen in upgrades, downgrades, and initiations:

Actuant Corp. (NYSE: ATU) Raised to Outperform at Wells Fargo.
BP plc (NYSE: BP) Called as Buy at NCB Stockbrokers (UK) on recent weakness.
Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) Started as Buy at Stern Agee.
EnerNOC (NASDAQ: ENOC) Raised to Buy at Janney.
HealthSouth Corp. (NYSE: HLS) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
InterMune Inc. (NASDAQ: ITMN) Downgraded to Market Perform at Wells Fargo, although this may be a yesterday call as most cuts came yesterday.
Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) Started as Buy at Stern Agee.
News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan late Wednesday.
SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) Started as Buy at Stern Agee.
Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) Cut to Hold at Weeden & Co.

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JON C. OGG

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Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: ATU, BP, ENOC, GLW, HLS, ITMN, MU, NWS, RIG, SNDK

Top 10 Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (AMED, BNI, CMCSA, CSX, DCP, FISV, GMR, HLS, STJ, TWC)

247wallst — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:45:37 +0000

These are ten of the top pre-market analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiation calls we have seen from Wall Street early this Wednesday morning with close to two hours until the market opens:

Amedisys (AMED) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) Started as Outperform at Baird.
Comcast (CMCSA) Started as Overweight at JPMOrgan.
CSX (CSX) Started as Outperform at Baird.
Dyncorp (DCP) Started as Buy at SunTrust.
Fiserv (FISV) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
General Maritime Corp. (GMR) Raised to Outperform at FBR.
HealthSouth Corp. (HLS) Started as Outperform at Baird.
St. Jude Medical (STJ) Raised to Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: AMED, BNI, CMCSA, CSX, DCP, FISV, GMR, HLS, STJ, TWC

Top Pre-Market Analyst Upgrades (EQIX, HLS, ITRI, MPEL, RTP, RTIX, UL, WSM)

247wallst — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:37:50 +0000

These are the few upgrades and positive research calls we have seen from Wall Street analysts this Wednesday morning:

Equinix (EQIX) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.
Healthsouth (HLS) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
Itron (ITRI) Raised to Buy at UBS.
Melco Crown PBL (MPEL) Raised to Buy but target cut at Goldman Sachs.
Rio Tinto (RTP) Raised to Buy at Canaccord.
RTI Biologics (RTIX) Started as Buy at Canaccord.
Unilever (UL) Started as Buy at Jefferies.
William Sonoma (WSM) Raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.

Jon C. Ogg
November 26, 2008

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: EQIX, HLS, ITRI, MPEL, RTIX, RTP, UL, WSM

Cramer’s Sell Block (May 10, 2007)

247wallst — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:52:05 +0000

On tonight’s Sell Block on CNBC’s MAD MONEY, Jim Cramer reviewed many of his picks you need to sell:

He said the CEO of Syntax-Brillian (BRLC) is one he doesn’t trust and he’s against the stock right now. If you read my own commentary regularly then this may sound familiar after I said they can’t be trusted.

HealthSouth (HLS) is one where Cramer is no longer on the fence and you have to sell it. The debt credit spreads are bad.

Because of the potential backlash on drug stocks, he wants to take the 16% gain on Novo Nordisk (NVO).

He wants to stick with McDermott (MDR) at $75, Foster Wheeler (FWLT) sell at $100, Fluor (FLR) at $115.

Dynegy (DYN) is being run well and he doesn’t think it needs to go down.

Cisco Sytems (CSCO) is one he liked repeatedly and he thought it would go up and it didn’t; But Cramer said he is not going negative and he is saying to not sell it. He would be a buyer if you haven’t bought. As a reminder this was Cramer’s #3 Top Growth Pick for 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
May 10, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.