The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: Companies With The Most Bad Press (5/10/2011

Investing

Published: May 10, 2011 10:34 am

Sony (NYSE: SNE) kept the top spot in the Flame Index as concerns about the shutdown of its PS3 network failed to subside. Sony could face $1 billion in liabilities. The Japanese company says the service will not be back online for three weeks. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) was a close second as new spread that it bought Skype for $8.5 billion.

H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) was punished because of concerns about it former subprime portfolio. Systemax fired one of its division executives who was involved in a scandal. Quest Diagnostics paid $211 million to settle a suit which claimed it over-billed customers.

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	27.981	+1	Playstation network still a mess
2	Microsoft	MSFT	25.05	+23	Buy Skype for $8.5 billlion
3	Fannie Mae	FNMAS	23.993	-2	Fear about breakup
4	Bank of America Corp.	BOA	22.543	+6	Large $850 billion portfolio drag
5	Warner Music Group	WMG	22.023	-2	About to be sold
6	Community Health Systems	CYH	20.631	+122	Walks away from Tenet deal
7	Forest Laboratories	FRX	19.851	+102	May face legal action on blood pressure drugs
8	H&R Block	HRB	19.612	+707	Problems with subprime portfolio
9	Massey Energy	MEE	19.176	+11	More concerns about mine safety
10	Boeing	BA	18.868	+37	Will 787 ever fly?
8	H&R Block	HRB	19.612	+707	Portfolio concerns
14	Alcatel Lucent	ALU	17.997	+172	Societe Generale downgrades shares
15	Systemax	SYX	17.753	+335
17	Quest Diagnostics	DGX	17.684	+674	legal issues
21	News Corp	NWSA	17.44	+242	YouTube starts video rental

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

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