Barron’s Very Odd “Most Repected” Company List

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Barron’s surveyed 95 professional managers and asked them to rank the 100 largest companies in the world based on market cap. Those surveyed were polled about which companies they most respected and which were at the bottom of their lists.

It would not surprise anyone that Bershire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) finished first. But, several other companies near the top of the list seem not to belong. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) finishes second, despite a number of problems at the company and the fact that the firm’s shares are down slightly over the last year. Microsoft (MSFT) is right up their. Its shares have not kept pace with the S&P over the last year.

Wal-Mart is No. 21 out of 100. No way to make sense of that.

Moving to the bottom half of the list, investors will find AT&T (T) at No.69. Its share are up nearly 30% in the last twelve months. And China Mobile (CHL) falls in at No. 87. Those shares have gained about 100% over a one year period.

The results are hardly Barron’s fault, but perhaps the magazine could publish a list of those who were polled so Wall St. can stay clear of them.

Douglas A. McIntrye

T, BRK.A, BRK.B, CHL, MSFT, WMT, JNJ

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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