The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: Goldman Hit By Legal Fees, Blackrock M&A
March 1, 2011 by Douglas A. McIntyre
For reasons that are hard to understand, Noble Energy (NYSE: NBL) was hit with a wave of bad news after it announced that the company had received a permit drill in the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps environmentalists are unhappy. Blackstone (NYSE: BX) bought Centro Properties (NYSE: CNP) for $9.4 billion. The market must believe the price is too high. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) announced that it could lose $3.4 billion in legal settlements over securities is underwrote.
Note: The Flame Index scans thousands of news sites 24 hours per day and ranks companies getting the most negative press right now. The Flame Index Media Analysis Algorithm crunches the data for an up-to-the-minute ranking of the hardest-hit companies.
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.
Douglas A. McIntyre
| Rank | Company | Ticker | Score | Change in Rank | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Noble Energy | NBL | 31.866 | +433 | Gets approval for Gulf drilling |
| 2 | Itron | ITRI | 30.432 | -1 | Lawsuits after bad earnings |
| 3 | Wells Fargo | WFC | 28.509 | +7 | Legal costs from 2008 crisis |
| 4 | American International Group | AIG | 27.301 | +10 | S&P downgrade insurance unit of company |
| 5 | Duke Energy | DUK | 27.141 | +6 | May buy in to SC nuclear sites |
| 6 | AFLAC | AFL | 25.132 | +9 | Files 10-K |
| 7 | BlackRock | BLK | 24.746 | +191 | Buys Centro for $9.4 billion |
| 8 | Forest Laboratories | FRX | 24.208 | -5 | Clinical Data buyout gets no support |
| 9 | Goldman Sachs Group | GS | 23.803 | +731 | Announces legal settlements could cost $3.4 billion |
| 10 | Helix Energy Solutions Group | HLX | 23.293 | -5 | Oil containment systems may be deployed in Gulf |
Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.
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