| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : MARCH 29, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
| ||||||||
 | ||||||||
| COVER STORY
Can We Pick 'Em--or What? With its fast finish, the BW 50 is this year's champ. Our 50 stocks far outpaced the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Thanks to a pounding home stretch, after financial stocks melted last fall, companies on the 1998 BW 50 came through again. For the 52-week period ended Mar. 12, 1999, a basket of the 50 stocks we highlighted on last year's list soared 32%. That compared with a 21% gain for the S&P 500 and 15% for the Dow Jones industrial average. All in all, 36 of the 50 companies gained during the year. Charles Schwab & Co., the biggest star last year, jumped 221%, thanks to its preeminence among Internet stockbrokers. EMC Corp., the second-best performer, rose 199%, due to its dominant position in the sizzling market for the hardware and software that allows companies to store all the data, Web pages, and other information being churned out in the Internet Age. THROBBING. Indeed, the technology sector once again kept the BW 50's engines churning. Of 10 tech stocks on the 1998 list, only two declined in value. The average stock in this sector was up 82%. Retailers, buoyed by a strong Christmas, rang up handsome returns as well, with Gap Inc. climbing 112% and Home Depot 88%. Health care, prominent on the list, did well too, led by medical-device maker Guidant Corp.'s 82% gain. It is a remarkable turnaround since we checked the 1998 list six months ago. At that time, the group was struggling, down 9.5%, compared with a 7.2% drop for the S&P 500. Weighed down by 19 banks and financial companies, our list had been hurt badly by the turmoil in international markets that began last summer. By mid-September, stocks of 32 companies had dropped in price. But then came autumn and a runup in the U.S. stock market that pushed the S&P 500 up 25% in the year's final three months. The financial sector began to recover. From declines, the 1998 BW 50 had returned to stable growth. Disappointments remain, especially among the financial stocks. Although Morgan Stanley Dean Witter jumped back to turn in a respectable 35% gain--it was down 28% at the worst of the market downdraft--many others closed out the 12 months below where they started. But this group has more than enough winners to make up the difference. By Nanette Byrnes in New York _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
|  |
 | |
 Return to main story RELATED ITEMS
E-Mail to Business Week Online | |||
