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The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: April 20 Companies With The Worst News

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) took a big hit in the news as shareholders sued over Sokol trades in Lubrizol. American Electric Power and NRG both pulled bad press over nuclear power facilities. Harley Davidson was hammered by the press because of bad earnings

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 56.24 0  Good earnings
2 Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A 36.304 +634  Shareholders sue over Sokol Lubrizol trades
3 Bank of America Corp. BOA 31.831 0  Modest earnings
4 Citigroup C 31.405 0  Poor earnings
5 Community Health Systems CYH 29.549 +1  Legal fight over Tenet takeover continues
6 Transocean Ltd RIG 27.116 +68  Still embroiled in Deepwater disaster
7 Texas Instruments TXN 24.581 +18  Mediocre earnings
8 Goldman Sachs Group GS 23.021 +73  Better than expected earnings as firm shrinks
9 Tenet Healthcare THC 22.835 +3  Fight with CYH continues
10 American Electric Power AEP 22.801 +83  Plagued by nuclear power worries
2 Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A 36.304 +634  Sokol insider trading problems
10 American Electric Power AEP 22.801 +83  Nuclear power fears
14 NRG Energy NRG 21.88 +693  Kills two planned nuclear power facilities
18 Harley-Davidson HOG 20.595 +636  Earnings miss Wall St. estimates
23 Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK 19.647 +496  Extremely poor earnings news

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

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