24/7 Wall St.’s Corporate Power Rankings: Week 36

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.

Berkshire Hathaway took the No.1 spot as it hit a 52-week high on Warren Buffett’s comments that there would be no double dip recession. Coke was helped as Interbrand named it the most valuable brand in the world for the 11th straight year. Bank of America dropped to the last spot as its new CEO laid out a grim view of the financial firm’s future

	Company	Rank (last week)	Symbol	Comment
	Berkshire Hathaway	1 (13)	BRK	Buffett says there will be no double dip recession. He may be right–his stock hit a 52-week high.
	McDonald’s	2 (2)	MCD	Pundits who cover burger wars say newly private Burger King is in trouble because McDonald’s already has all the customers.
	Apple	3 (3)	APPL	Hits another all-time high and appears to be expanding media relationships with a new online newsstand.
	Proctor & Gamble	4 (1)	PG	Jefferies & Co posts extremely positive remarks about strong returns on brand marketing particularly in Gillette.
	IBM	5 (4)	IBM	Begins to offer interest free loans to customers who switch from Oracle and HP.
	Abbott Labs	6 (5)	ABT	Completes purchase of generics company Piramel. A good signal that Abbott has decided to buy what it cannot build.
	Coca-Cola	7 (6)	KO	How could the news be better? Coke listed as No.1 brand in the world for 11th year with value of $70.4 billion.
	Cisco	8 (7)	CSCO	Decision to pay dividend causes noisy debate over use of cash, but the current high stock price is all investors care about.
	Disney	9 (8)	DIS	CFO says advertising trends are still moving up strongly which should telegraph this quarter’s earnings.
	Philip Morris	10 (9)	PM	Another 52-week high. And, a 4.6% yield. All that even though people cannot smoke indoors.
	Google	11 (10)	GOOG	New telephone voice app may hurt telecoms and Skype, but there is no reason to think the search company will make a dime.
	Pfizer	12 (11)	PFE	Big push into animal health market. Dogs pay more for drugs than people do.
	Ford	13 (12)	F	CEO say a new rebound has begun in US car market. That combined with firm’s rising market share should make for a good Q4.
	Oracle	14 (14)	ORCL	Shares near 10-year high as Wall St. continues to applaud earnings. Rumors are that the company could seize open source software position with buyout of Redhat.
	Exxon-Mobil	15 (16)	XOM	Credit Suisse cuts earnings estimates based on low oil prices, but wants a higher dividend. Greedy.
	Intel	16 (15)	INTC	With each day, the No.1 chip companies tries to diversify from the PC business and with each day it falls further behind.
	Wal-Mart	17 (19)	WMT	India is close to decision that would allow biggest retailer to do business there. Head of company’s US unit swears things will improve. Daily double.
	FedEx	18 (17)	FDX	Strong earnings, more layoffs. Good trend for investors, awful for employees.
	Microsoft	19 (18)	MSFT	Xbox 360 sales get big lift from “Halo.” New version of Internet Explorer launched. A red-letter week.
	GE	20 (22)	GE	Oddly enough, Buffett’s comments about not expecting a double-dip recession are good for GE with its huge exposure to global economy.
	Dow Chemical	21 (20)	DOW	Company pushes further into wind industry which has been a loser for almost every other investor.
	Verizon	22 (21)	VZ	Research In Motion forecasts for BlackBerry sales should be good news for partner Verizon. Competition from free Google Android phone application clearly is not.
	Caterpillar	23 (23)	CAT	Investor get huge gift at week’s end. CAT sales sales have surged primarily in Latin and North America.
	American Express	24 (24)	AXP	Outstanding debt of US citizens is falling, but primarily due to defaults–bad news for credit card companies. MasterCard’s planned share buyback puts pressure on Amex.
	JP Morgan	25 (25)	JPM	CEO Jamie Dimon says that the new financial regulatory package is so complicated, he does not know if he can stay on New York Federal Reserve board–and the reforms are barely a month old.
	Boeing	26 (27)	BA	Orders for 737s rise, but WTO says aircraft company got US aid it should not have. Whether that will hurt future sales is a guess.
	AT&T	27 (26)	T	Stock moves near 52-week high as an armada of new wireless devices comes to market.
	Goldman Sachs	28 (28)	GS	Stock stays near recent lows as suspicion the financial reform will hurt it more than SEC did grows.
	Home Depot	29 (31)	HD	“Second” Obama stimulus package should give construction a boost–if it is passed.
	Hewlett-Packard	30 (29)	HPQ	As wait goes on for a new CEO, market discovers that old CEO may have made a mistake by staying out of wireless device market.
	Johnson & Johnson	31 (32)	JNJ	Head of consumer division walks the plank after two highly visible recalls. That won’t be much protection against product liability suits.
	Bank of America	32 (30)	BAC	New CEO gives his vision for future of the bank. Financial reform=cloudy with heavy showers.

-Douglas A. McIntyre