The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: Companies With The Worst Press (5/3/2011)

May 3, 2011 by Douglas A. McIntyre

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
1 Sony Corporation SNE 93.604 +1  Playstation. Hacker. Say no more.
2 Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A 68.05 -1  Reputation problems with Sokol mess begin to disappear
3 DISH Network DISH 42.107 +64  Cuts deal to be law suits with Tivo
4 Cephalon CEPH 40.227 +710  Teva buyout but shareholders want a lot more money
5 Community Health Systems CYH 38.114 +5  Raises off for Tenet
6 Arch Coal ACI 37.101 +91  Investors don’t like bid to purchase ICG
7 Massey Energy MEE 35.388 -4  Bad earnings, memory of mine disaster
8 Google GOOG 34.954 +5  South Korea raids search company’s offices
9 Rite Aid RAD 34.164 -2  Concern about ongoing same-store sales stagnation
10 American Electric Power AEP 30.215 +9  Nuclear power victim
4 Cephalon CEPH 40.227 +710  Teva deal.
17 Hartford Financial Services HIG 23.929 +691  A profit, at last
18 Fannie Mae FNM 23.028 +92
20 Abbott Laboratories ABT 21.593 +677  Rivals Pfizer and BSX do well.
25 Toyota Motor Corporation TM 20.147 +236  Car sales in Japan home market trashed.

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

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