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

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

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.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618