The LEAST Trustworthy Companies In America: 24/7 Wall Street (PHOTOS)

By 24/7 Wall Street -- 24/7 Wall St., working together with independent research firm Audit Integrity, has compiled a list of the companies with the least transparent governance and accounting practices.

The list is based on publicly available information updated for the 2009 calendar year. Shares of all the companies on this list are publicly traded on U.S. stock exchanges. This list is based on the same methodology that is used to produce "The 100 Most Trustworthy Companies," as published by Forbes. In our opinion, the companies with the lowest transparency scores are the least trustworthy companies in America.

To report which firms have the greatest shareholder risk, Audit Integrity's methodology breaks companies down into four groups. The AGR scores range from 0 to 100, worst to best and are classified as follows:

Very Aggressive - highest-risk companies, comprising approximately 10% of the total universe;

Aggressive - high-risk companies, comprising approximately 25% of the total universe;

Average - moderate-risk companies, comprising approximately 50% of the total universe; and

Conservative - low-risk companies, comprising approximately 15% of the total universe.

Read the full story ith a list of the 50 least transparent companies, plus check out our picks from 24/7 Wall Street's list below.

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Goldman Sachs

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Industry: Investment Services Market cap: $72.39 billion Current Accounting and Governance Risk Rating (AGR): 1 Flagged governance metrics: 6 Flagged accounting metrics: 7 -- 24/7 Wall Street

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Industry: Investment Services
Market cap: $72.39 billion
Current Accounting and Governance Risk Rating (AGR): 1
Flagged governance metrics: 6
Flagged accounting metrics: 7

-- 24/7 Wall Street

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Comments

[PhilipTaylor]

04:00 PM on 06/26/2010

HamletMill­s tells it ALL! Read his POSTS! The Truth!

[PhilipTaylor]

04:03 PM on 06/26/2010

Here is HamletMill­s POST:

"I say the main factor is that we do not know HISTORY. Especially the SORDID FINANCIAL HISTORY of the United States. The same class of people (the "old" money and their permanent establishm­ent from the first wave of stock market financed industrial­ization after the Civil War own the United States. This is the Washington D.C. - New York Corridor Nexus. The apparatus is the Ivy league Universiti­es and the bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists that come out of them to work for the old money establishm­ent which also own everything new. They created the MIC after WWII to cash out on war as another big cash cow. That is pretty much what is driving the U.S. now. Profits for them. Death for the sons and daughters of everybody else caught in the poverty draft. That is the game. The huge, never ending Aztec Pyramid of death. Fritz Lang nailed it in 1927. http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=yATrCTOgT­LM

Absolutely NOTHING has changed in the world. NOTHING. And so now there is going to be hell to pay in these United States.

[Uber]

08:59 PM on 06/23/2010

What, no merchants of death on this list? Has their evil actually been superseded by these others?

Cough!

[farmilyman]

07:37 AM on 06/13/2010

What? No Monsanto? No BP? Who voted?

[MetrointheWoods]

06:45 PM on 06/20/2010

See, Monsanto is in a bit of a different situation than just about every other company. In the hybridizin­g process, they've rendered the seeds in our fruits and vegetables sterile. That means that farmers don't have a choice: they MUST go to Monsanto and the like. The question isn't if we trust them, it's a question of our ability to live without them.

[Trollstein]

03:59 AM on 06/13/2010

Bank of America has done more to destroy the USA then al quieda could ever do. The own the federal courts and use this advantage to do as they please and not even ask any questions after.

[callyhouck]

01:09 AM on 06/12/2010

Enterprise Rent a Car....ren­ted a recalled car to two California sisters age 24 and 20....car caught fire and both sisters died. Apparently this is something that is quite common with this company who clears billions in revenue. Their corporate policy is profit over safety.

[Benjo333]

07:59 PM on 06/09/2010

Altria, and frankly I know its an internatio­nal company but why is BP not in the top spot here.

[bipartisans]

08:01 AM on 06/11/2010

How is it that Comcast is not on this list?

[layla1]

06:37 PM on 06/09/2010

Where is JPMORGAN CHASE-- They should be in the TOP 5

[trollingfortruth]

05:52 PM on 06/09/2010

Look, Huffpost, if you're going to title an article something like "The List of the Ten Most Untrustwor­thy Businesses in the Country" or words very similar, just print the damn list! It's an incredible waste of my time to open the article, and then have to work my way through countless links to more lengthy drivel, sometimes never even getting near the so-called "list". Either print it UPFRONT or stop making claims that you're going to print it!

[HamletsMill]

07:19 PM on 06/24/2010

Fanned!

[LinkSync]

03:52 PM on 06/09/2010

I'm surprised that I don't see BP up there.

[SangZe]

03:01 PM on 06/09/2010

You get what you ask for.

[jasdmd0]

12:36 PM on 06/09/2010

I want to cast my vote for the Federal Gov't as THE least trustworth­y company! Afterall, some of us atleast pay them $$, and some of us receive goods and services from them, and the number of times that what they do ='s what they say they'll do is very few and far between!

[hypnotoad72]

01:14 PM on 06/09/2010

Only because they've been ran like a business for a few decades now...

[tpaine24]

01:15 PM on 06/09/2010

No way. The gov't's right on it. From 2001-09, my government told me that it was going to plunge us into two ridiculous wars no matter the cost or reason and it did. It also told me that it would give away 100's of billions of dollars in bizarre tax cuts to the 3000 richest people in the country, and it did. It told me that it didn't give a s*** about the environmen­t and wasn't going to take it seriously, and it didn't. In short, my government told me that it was committed to wrecking the greatest country in the world, and it did. Completely trust worthy. The current admin., however, promised some socialism and world peace; but so far not so much. It's like the old guys are still running the show.

[disgustedwithall]

04:18 PM on 06/09/2010

Soprry but when anyone whines about government­. they seem to forget that is what got voted in over last thirty years and sadly..mos­t of the fools that voted were the ones reveling in the :Great economic times of the early 2000's..

But now when piper asks to be paid for that dance.. kind of whimper and cry.. note most of tea party would lead the list of the latter. AKA was great and good when we got it, but now.. well it is all "Their fault" (we are cut off from gravy train, or some are cut off)

Reality is the dumbed down selfish citizens loved it when the thing was getting ready to explode.. and now whine a bit to much.. and are greatly uninformed a bit to much!

[HamletsMill]

07:25 PM on 06/24/2010

Fanned. Compared to our once great natural resources, we are the greatest nation of idiots in human history. We live in endless spending of borrowed and printed money and endless war for profit on the blood of the sons and daughters of the land. We are now the ultimate Aztec pyramid. We are in deep, deep trouble. All because Americans do not know the financial history of 1895, 1907, 1908-1913, 1914, and 1929. the don't know the origins and causes of WWI and WWII. And so they have sold their children into slavery and continue to live on their knees. How did it ever come to this? Just unbelievab­le. 68,000 U.S. soldiers dead, 303,000 severely wounded, 5 million Vietnamese dead on both sides in Vietnam and we learned absolutely nothing. Zero. Nada. Zippo. Still endless, endless savage war for blood money.

[arabianway]

11:30 AM on 06/09/2010

Almost unbelievab­le to me that people are still feeding their children and maybe themselves the General Foods cereals pictured.

It is very interestin­g to observe what people put in their carts at the market and then to observe what they look like.

Interestin­g yes. Sometimes sad and scary too.

[squatmunkie]

12:26 PM on 06/09/2010

What's wrong with General Mills cereal?

[arabianway]

02:45 PM on 06/11/2010

You might as well eat the box for all the health benefits you get from these cereals.

[Douglas Scheesley]

01:00 PM on 06/09/2010

I have always been skinny and I grew up on Froot Loops.

I sense some snobbery coming from you, with a hint of discrimina­tion.

[FoonTheElder]

11:00 AM on 06/09/2010

Maybe they should have a list of trustworth­y big corporatio­ns.....if they can find any.

Of course to Wall Street, trustworth­y only means how they report their earnings and how well they treat their investors. Wall Street wouldn't care if big corporatio­ns ran slave operations as long as they reported it correctly, had an increasing stock price and paid a consistent dividend.

[hypnotoad72]

01:14 PM on 06/09/2010

*zing* - great response!

[disgustedwithall]

04:21 PM on 06/09/2010

Maybe they should have a list of trustworth­y big corporatio­ns

Now be careful as via the Supreme Ct., you are now insulting a new form of "People" or something kinda-sort­a-somewhat for political purposes (READ CASH) and huge tax breaks and exemptions from laws. a "Person"??­??

[maxfax]

10:59 AM on 06/09/2010

They're still in business, making money, money that buys enormous influence through their KStreet lobbyists who slink through the halls of Congress..

[keramos]

09:35 AM on 06/09/2010

The good news for these companies is that BP is deflecting attention from them right now. Same way as Jesse James (Sandra Bullock's ex) did for Tiger Woods.

Now that's what I call teamwork!