The 24/7 Wall St./Flame Index: The Companies With The Most Negative Press (6/7)

Investing

Published: June 7, 2011 9:41 am

Halliburton coverage moved negative after courts approved a class action suit by shareholders. GE and Capital One were hurt because of plans to buy ING Direct. An Airbus move to increase competition with Boeing drive negative press.

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	Massey Energy	MEE	70.907	0	Finally sold, mine safety still issue
2	Halliburton	HAL	62.453	+214	Shareholder class action suit gets green light
3	Alpha Natural Resources	ANR	55.709	-1	Closes deal to buy troubled Massey
4	Sony Corporation	SNE	49.423	+6	Playstation network still under attack
5	Google	GOOG	42.846	+2	Chinese hack Gmail?
6	Boeing	BA	37.216	+33	Rival Airbus may launch improved A350
7	Bank of America Corp.	BOA	35.629	+16	Concerns about mortgage portfolio
8	Goldman Sachs Group	GS	35.4	+9	Federal government probe
9	Temple-Inland	TIN	35.186	+556	International Paper takeover bid
10	Office Depot	ODP	31.448	+4	May sales poor
2	Halliburton	HAL	62.453	+214	Lawsuit worries
9	Temple-Inland	TIN	35.186	+556	Rejects IP takeover bid
15	Capital One Financial	COF	25.009	+290	May bid for ING Direct
16	American Eagle Outfitters	AEO	24.81	+211	Worries about solvency
19	General Electric	GE	24.612	+607	May join bid for ING Direct

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

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