24/7 Wall St. asked Audit Integrity to screen  companies with market caps of more than $3 billion to create a list of the firms that use the most transparent and conservative accounting programs and have “best of class” corporate governance and management. This data is based on the The Audit Integrity Accounting and Governance Risk rating which is a forensic measure of the clarity and statistical reliability of a corporation’s financial reporting and governance practices. To create this data Audit Integrity applies over 100 accounting and governance metrics to a company’s publicly filed information.

After reviewing this data, 24/7 created a list of The Twenty Companies Wall St. Can Trust The Most. The firms are ranked based on their Accounting and Governance Risk scores.

The list represents companies that have practices which should be emulated by every public company that wishes to serve the needs of its shareholders by presenting accurate financial data and providing conservative management of shareholder’s investments.

The Twenty Companies Wall St. Can Trust The Most:

 

Company	Ticker	AGR Rating	AGR Score
RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd.	RNR	Conservative	99
Cintas Corporation	CTAS	Conservative	98
Enbridge Energy Partners, L.P.	EEP	Conservative	98
Equinix, Inc.	EQIX	Conservative	98
American Eagle Outfitters	AEO	Conservative	96
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.	BBBY	Conservative	96
Reinsurance Group of America	RGA	Conservative	96
ARC Energy Trust	AET.UN	Conservative	95
Dollar Tree, Inc.	DLTR	Conservative	94
Ameren Corporation	AEE	Conservative	92
Manpower Inc.	MAN	Conservative	91
Mettler-Toledo International Inc.	MTD	Conservative	91
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.	JEC	Conservative	88
NII Holdings, Inc.	NIHD	Conservative	88
ResMed Inc.	RMD	Conservative	87
F5 Networks, Inc.	FFIV	Conservative	86
Hess Corp.	HES	Conservative	86
XL Capital Ltd.	XL	Conservative	86
salesforce.com, inc.	CRM	Conservative	84
Shaw Communications Inc.	SJR.B	Conservative	84

 

Methodology: The Audit Integrity Accounting and Governance Risk (AGR) rating is a forensic measure of the transparency and reliability of a corporation’s financial reporting and governance practices. The focus of AGR analysis is on identifying the measures most highly associated with fraud, and quantifying those risks for interested stakeholders in relation to company stock price, securities litigation, and major restatement probabilities.

Audit Integrity applies over 100 accounting and governance metrics to a company’s publicly-filed information. The resulting calculation produces the AGR, a percentile score ranging from 0 to 100, with corresponding ratings from Very Aggressive to Conservative.

Companies rated Very Aggressive or Aggressive have proven to be much more likely to face class action litigation and financial restatements, and to suffer severe equity loss. Conversely, those companies that have been consistently rated Conservative have been shown to be the most trustworthy.

AGR significantly improves the predictivity of traditional risk models.

The AGR and its underlying metrics are used by regulators, auditors, insurance companies, investment managers, and corporations, and are often incorporated in reporting by major financial media.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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