24/7 Wall St.'s Corporate Power Rankings (Week 4)

The 24/7 Wall Street Corporate Power Rankings of the thirty-two most important companies in America are determined by earnings, analyst rankings, important corporate news, trends in each firm’s industry, product introductions, management strength and changes, and credible rumors.

The Corporate Power Rankings are released at midnight on each Sunday based on performance during the previous week.

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B) took the top spot after a reverse split of its shares and its addition to the S&P 500. Ford (NYSE:F) moved to second place as rival Toyota (NYSE:TM) faces a massive recall. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) stays in last place as government pressure to regulate banks grows

Douglas A. McIntyre

	Company	Rank (last week)	Symbol	Comment
	Berkshire Hathaway	1 (5)	BRK	Reverse split not only brings in retail shareholders but gets Buffett a spot at S&P 500 table. Company says it will issue no new shares, taking dilution out of the picture.
	Ford	2 (3)	F	Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC) recalls should help Ford pickup significant market share in the US over the next month or two. Earnings show that financial momentum is growing.
	McDonald’s	3 (2)	MCD	particularly strong earnings numbers. Push into China appears to be bearing fruit. Burger King may start selling beer. Would be a nice new profit center for Big Mac.
	Wal-Mart	4 (4)	WMT	GDP numbers have to fire up Sam’s shareholders. Goldman pushes stock to “buy” from “neutral”. Firms sets up sourcing deal with Li & Fung to cut wholesale costs.
	Microsoft	5 (6)	MSFT	Earnings are close to spectacular. Windows 7 better than expected. Mobile OS is being recast for new launch. May be too late as Google Android crushes wireless software rivals.
	Abbott Labs	6 (7)	ABT	Strong earnings. Anti-seizure drug Depakote hurt by generics but numbers are offset by rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira. Big money in curing the sick, raising the dead.
	Apple	7 (1)	APPL	More poor reviews of the iPad and saber-rattling by Amazon and some publishers. iPhone app developers find moving software to iPad is not a snap, which may slow building of a proper “app” store for new tablet.
	Cisco	8 (9)	CSCO	Great expectations for earnings. But, competition is heating up from Juniper and Polycom in video conferencing and VMWare in virtualization. The bigger Cisco get, the easier a target it becomes.
	Proctor & Gamble	9 (17)	PG	Good earnings, even better forecast. GDP news underscores some improvement in consumer spending. Green lighted.
	FedEx	10 (10)	FDX	Gets price break on Super Bowl ads. Lower oil prices should mean better margins. Out of work pilots laid off by passenger airlines should help bring down labor costs.
	Intel	11 (12)	INTC	JV with Micron should pick up some flash chip share. Qualcomm earnings make chip co. investors depressed. Mr. Softy earnings help processor and PC shares.
	Coca-Cola	12 (19)	KO	GDP and consumer spending trends tend to favor. New ‘Open the Games. Open Happiness’ Olympic marketing will cost shareholders a fortune.
	Dow Chemical	13 (8)	DOW	Rival Dupont posts good numbers and Institute for Supply Management’s figures are good. But commodities prices still blow an ill wind.
	IBM	14 (15)	IBM	Oracle/Sun deal probably a real threat to high-end hardware. Redmond earnings make believes re: recovery of iron and software.
	Google	15 (11)	GOOG	China mess gets worse on Schmidt’s aggressive comments about helping Chinese man on the street get more access to internet. Apple iPad another weapon in are against new Google hardware push.
	American Express	16 (16)	AXP	All Amex senior execs get big raises. Ladenberg Thalmann raises shares from sell to neutral. Faint praise.
	GE	17 (21)	GE	Profits from euro-peer Siemens are good news for global conglomerate biz. Analysts have impression that GE Capital has become more stable. Happy days.
	Pfizer	18 (25)	PFE	Obama healthcare going down in flames, will take profit pressure off Big Pharma. Amgen strong earnings a plus for entire industry.
	Disney	19 (14)	DIS	Apple iPad likely to be a new conduit for Mouse video content. Jobs and Iger have forged alliance with Steve on Disney board. Preferential treatment. But, ad-supported media slow to recover, hard on most Walt content.
	Hewlett-Packard	20 (27)	HPQ	Microsoft earnings mean HP PC and servers sales are moving higher. Apple tablet won’t be a bother for several quarters.
	Philip Morris	21 (20)	PM	Traders buy puts on stock. Goldman Sachs said to expect decline in cigarette. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
	Verizon	22 (24)	VZ	Picks up another Palm handset. New FCC ruling should get more sports on handsets. Rumor that iPhone deal is just weeks away.
	Oracle	23 (18)	ORCL	Juniper launches new video product competition. Stock sells off much more sharply as DJIA during week. Any real correction in tech will hurt most visible stocks as much as small caps.
	Boeing	24 (22)	BA	Obama insists on selling weapons to Taiwan. China plans to punish US defense manufacturers, including Boeing. Tests on 787 show plane needs few changes. How few?
	Caterpillar	25 (13)	CAT	Earnings disaster and comments about the future less hopeful than Wall St. expected. China trade disagreements with US are heating up. No good for CAT.
	Exxon-Mobil	26 (26)	XOM	Gets new deal to redevelop huge oil field in Iraq. World’s largest energy firm expects decent earnings this week. Falling oil crude prices still a negative.
	Bank of America	27 (30)	BAC	Should be hurt less than most big financials by proposed bank regs because of large consumer base.CEO gets big raise which will make no one happy but him. BAC website down, customers PO’ed.
	JP Morgan	28 (31)	JPM	Moves to expand global lending unit. Citi ups rating on JPM shares. Obama attack on banks could make take a razor to some Morgan earnings.
	AT&T	29 (23)	T	Says economic recovery will be slow. Landline business still bleeding. Profits up, but based heavily on cost cuts. Fiber to the home TV business still lackluster.
	Home Depot	30 (29)	HD	Home sales and permits not showing enough upside. Foreclosures expected to rose to 3 million next year. HD fires another 1,000 people.
	Johnson & Johnson	31 (28)	JNJ	Bad quarter, mostly on restructuring fees for firing workers. DOJ still on the company for potential kickbacks. News is worse each week. Generics still tearing into top line.
	Goldman Sachs	32 (32)	GS	Government eyeing Goldman payments in AIG (AIG) bailout. May just be more bad PR. Obama notion of more restrictions on financial firm risk would pinch Goldman hard.

Douglas A. McIntyre