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The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: Companies With The Worst Press (5/3/2011)
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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 | Sony Corporation | SNE | 93.604 | +1 | Playstation. Hacker. Say no more. |
| 2 | Berkshire Hathaway | BRK.A | 68.05 | -1 | Reputation problems with Sokol mess begin to disappear |
| 3 | DISH Network | DISH | 42.107 | +64 | Cuts deal to be law suits with Tivo |
| 4 | Cephalon | CEPH | 40.227 | +710 | Teva buyout but shareholders want a lot more money |
| 5 | Community Health Systems | CYH | 38.114 | +5 | Raises off for Tenet |
| 6 | Arch Coal | ACI | 37.101 | +91 | Investors don’t like bid to purchase ICG |
| 7 | Massey Energy | MEE | 35.388 | -4 | Bad earnings, memory of mine disaster |
| 8 | GOOG | 34.954 | +5 | South Korea raids search company’s offices | |
| 9 | Rite Aid | RAD | 34.164 | -2 | Concern about ongoing same-store sales stagnation |
| 10 | American Electric Power | AEP | 30.215 | +9 | Nuclear power victim |
| 4 | Cephalon | CEPH | 40.227 | +710 | Teva deal. |
| 17 | Hartford Financial Services | HIG | 23.929 | +691 | A profit, at last |
| 18 | Fannie Mae | FNM | 23.028 | +92 | |
| 20 | Abbott Laboratories | ABT | 21.593 | +677 | Rivals Pfizer and BSX do well. |
| 25 | Toyota Motor Corporation | TM | 20.147 | +236 | Car sales in Japan home market trashed. |
Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.
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