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The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: March 22 Companies With The Most Bad News
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Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) was swamped with bad press as it was sued by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) over patents on technology used in the Nook e-reader. PG&G has applied to renew licenses to operate two nuclear plants in California. That process is now in jeopardy. BP faced more bad press as future drilling in the North Sea came under scrutiny by the UK government. Bad press about Hartford Finance rose because it does a great deal o f business in China
Note: The Flame Index scans thousands of news sites 24 hours per day and ranks companies getting the most negative press right now. The Flame Index Media Analysis Algorithm crunches the data for an up-to-the-minute ranking of the hardest-hit companies.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 | Fannie Mae | FNMAS | 58.847 | +2 | Concerns about viability stay high |
| 2 | Freddie Mac | FMCC | 58.157 | 0 | Ditto |
| 3 | Barnes & Noble | BKS | 51.175 | +731 | IP lawsuit over Nook |
| 4 | Hewlett-Packard | HP | 50.399 | +2 | Concerns about new CEO plans |
| 5 | International Business Machines | IBM | 48.574 | -4 | Tech stocks hurt by valuations |
| 6 | GOOG | 44.566 | +35 | Gmail service blocked in China | |
| 7 | American International Group | AIG | 39.337 | +35 | Will try to dump weak derivative paper |
| 8 | Toyota Motor Corporation | TM | 36.822 | +2 | Manufacturing interruptions in Japan |
| 9 | General Motors | GM | 36.65 | -2 | Could face Japan parts shortages |
| 10 | Quest Diagnostics | DGX | 36.305 | -6 | Will offer $1.2 billion in new debt |
| 3 | Barnes & Noble | BKS | 51.175 | +731 | IP suit |
| 17 | BP | BP | 29.897 | +62 | North Sea drilling |
| 21 | NRG Energy | NRG | 27.671 | +92 | Nuclear energy exposure |
| 22 | Hartford Financial Services | HIG | 27.541 | +77 | Does business in Japan |
| 23 | PG&E Corp. | PCG | 26.564 | +258 | Nuclear plant face headwinds |
Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.
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