The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: March 26 The Companies With The Most Bad Press

Investing

Published: March 26, 2011 7:47 am

Lennar (NYSE: LEN) received a large amount of bad press after it was disclosed that an outsider had been accused of insider trading in the company’s shares Alcatel Lucent’s (NYSE: ALU) image was rubbed on concerns about whether client AT&T (NYSE: T) would continue to use its services.

Two companies, Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) each received a large jump in negative press mentions just after they released earnings. As a matter of fact, RIMM shares fell 10%.

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	Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	45.22	+15	Lingering concerns about recalls and product quality
2	Lennar	LEN	43.067	+166	Insider trading charges brought against outsider
3	Toyota Motor Corporation	TM	38.925	+4	Plants in Japan still idle
4	Rite Aid	RAD	36.961	+14	Competitor Walgreen gets good buy with drugstore.com
5	Honda Motor Company	HMC	36.281	+7	Plant slowdowns due to quake
6	Alcatel Lucent	ALU	32.319	+43	Concerns about lost business due to AT&T deal to buy T-Mobile
7	Barnes & Noble	BKS	31.527	-5	Decides it cannot find a buyer
8	Bank of America Corp.	BOA	31.372	-4	Fed rejects attempts to reinstate dividend
9	Google	GOOG	31.011	-8	New version of Android slowed
10	Fannie Mae	FNMAS	30.511	-7	Concerns about insolvency
2	Lennar	LEN	43.067	+166	Insider trading
6	Alcatel Lucent	ALU	32.319	+43	AT&T supply interruption?
17	Research In Motion Limited	RIMM	24.724	+718	Awful earnings forecast
18	Oracle	ORCL	24.009	+81	Earnings news
24	Best Buy	BBY	22.321	+141	Awful earnings

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

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