24/7 Wall St.’s Corporate Power Rankings: Week 24

The 24/7 Wall Street Corporate Power Rankings of the 32 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 change, and credible rumors. It is, in effect, a new version of the DJIA. The Corporate Power Rankings are released at midnight on each Sunday based on performance during the previous week.

The current rankings are a mid-year snapshot for the list and ranking has not changed from last week as the line-up is set for re-ordering each week for the balance of the year. Apple and consumer-focused services companies stay at the top of the list and telecom and financial firms stay at the bottom. Earnings for most companies, which begin in two weeks are the most likely reason that rankings may change for the next several weeks.

	Company	Rank (last week)	Symbol	Comment
	Apple	1 (1)	APPL	One million iPhone 4 sales on the first day? Probably. And, in many places the iPad is still sold out.
	McDonald’s	2 (2)	MCD	If Starbucks is going to sell wine, Ronald McDonald will open complete bars.
	Berkshire Hathaway	3 (3)	BRK	Buffett buys into huge UK retailer Tesco. Market applauds.
	Disney	4 (4)	DIS	“Toy Story 3” still in top box office spot. Studio profits will be huge.
	Intel	5 (5)	INTC	Should soon settle monopoly charges with the FTC.
	Proctor & Gamble	6 (6)	PG	Recalls a few bottle of Scope for cap problems. No one uses it anymore anyway.
	IBM	7 (7)	IBM	Rival Oracle posts figures that show enterprise computing has recovered.
	Abbott Labs	8 (8)	ABT	FDA approves new diabetes testing strips.
	Coca-Cola	9 (9)	KO	Company says its Twitter ads are  phenomenally successful. No one else’s are.
	Philip Morris	10 (10)	PM	Cuts outlook on weaker euro, but money woes won’t undercut long-term addiction.
	Ford	11 (11)	F	Concern rising that the company has no significant presence in China.
	Wal-Mart	12 (12)	WMT	Wal-mart wins the right to move into Chicago. NYC could be next.
	Cisco	13 (13)	CSCO	Chambers meets with Soviet President Medvedev. Gets no vodka.
	Oracle	14 (14)	ORCL	Home run earnings. Big stock run.
	Microsoft	15 (15)	MSFT	Redmond’s management issues manifesto on company’s success. It may be right.
	Hewlett-Packard	16 (16)	HPQ	More news out of rival Dell that it is on the ropes.
	Pfizer	17 (17)	PFE	Barron’s says that stock should rally and that big pharma R&D works better than thought.
	Google	18 (18)	GOOG	Android picks up share on rivals, again. Google can’t make money on it, again.
	American Express	19 (19)	AXP	Moody’s says worst of credit card write downs are over. Of course, it also said subprime paper was a good investment.
	FedEx	20 (20)	FDX	Expanding US facilities for ground transportation. Something must be going right.
	Dow Chemical	21 (21)	DOW	Begins to expand into promising LED industry, a chance to raise margins.
	Boeing	22 (22)	BA	CEO may finally be fired now that 787 Dreamliner is late again.
	Caterpillar	23 (23)	CAT	Euro price will hurt CAT’s profits, perhaps badly.
	Exxon-Mobil	24 (24)	XOM	BP’s troubles may help company gain new contracts, but industry-wide bans on drilling could offset that advantage
	AT&T	25 (25)	T	Gets thrashed again for bad 3G service as iPhone 4 launches.
	GE	26 (26)	GE	FCC goes even slower in process to approve Comcast deal to take over NBCU. Immelt and friends sweat.
	Verizon	27 (27)	VZ	Launches Droid X with Motorola which may actually hurt Apple.
	Johnson & Johnson	28 (28)	JNJ	May keep factory that made bad kiddie drugs closed until year-end.
	Home Depot	29 (29)	HD	Janney Capital Markets cuts stock to “neutral”
	JP Morgan	30 (30)	JPM	NY Times says that new banking law may hurt this bank most of all.
	Bank of America	31 (31)	BAC	New consumer watchdog agency will be watching the bank’s mortgage and credit card businesses—carefully.
	Goldman Sachs	32 (32)	GS	Bank reform hurts Goldman and each week that goes by without an SEC deal is worse.

Douglas A. McIntyre