How the rankings were determined

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Top 50 lists were derived from Bloomberg data and public company reports.

Data for revenue, net income to common shareholders and return on equity are based on the most recent fiscal year reports filed by each company as of March 31. In most cases, that means the numbers are from the 2019 calendar year.

Stock price movements are based on the 2019 calendar year. Market capitalization figures are based on Dec. 31, 2019, closing stock prices or the end of a company’s fiscal year.

For overall rankings of the 58 publicly traded companies analyzed, an average score was determined for each of the seven performance categories: revenue and revenue change; net income and net income change; stock price change; market capitalization; and return on equity.

Those averages were subtracted from the individual company scores in each category, with the difference divided by the standard deviation for each of the categories. That resulted in a weighted score for each company in each category. The weighted scores were then added up to determine a company’s overall score.

The same procedure was used to determine the growth rankings, using the categories of revenue change, net income change, stock price change and return on equity.

Figures for Arconic and AK Steel reflect those companies are they existed on Dec. 31, 2019, not as they are today. AK Steel became a part of Cleveland-Cliffs; Arconic split into two companies, Arconic and Howmet Aerospace.