Just four St. Louis stocks are ahead for the year
With five trading days left in 2008, it looks like only a handful of St. Louis companies will make money for their investors. At the moment, only four have share prices that are up for the year: Panera Bread, up 40%; Laclede Group, up 28%; Insituform Technologies, up 25 percent and Stifel Financial, up 23 percent. Make it five if you want to count Anheuser-Busch, which scored a 51 percent gain as a result of the takeover by InBev. A few others could make it into positive territory if they get a strong yearend rally.
On the red-ink side of the ledger, there’s a spirited competition for worst St. Louis stock of the year. KV Pharmaceutical is down 90 percent after today’s product-recall news. Close behind are Charter Communications, down 89 percent, Huttig Building Products, down 86 percent and MEMC Electronic Materials, down 85 percent.
Note: Posts will be scarce for the next week while I take some time off. I’ll be back at year’s end with an update on the winners and losers.
(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
I think you need to another check of your facts, I can think of two companies — just top of mind, that made money for calendar 2008: Cass Information Systems & Monsanto. Not to mention, there are a whole host of privately held companies.
My impression is that there are “some” in our community, in the media especially, that almost find joy in the negativity. This thing we call “an economy” is so psychologically-sensitive. We “ALL” have to be careful to not escalate an already difficult situation with hyperbole and ancedotal evidence of our “dire situation”. Our economy is able to rebound if we all continue to express some level of trust and not go out a say the “sky is falling”.
Andy,
AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The negativity and constant the sky is falling talk feeds on itself and then perception becomes reality.
This article is regarding stock prices, not profit. Monsanto stock is down from ~ 115 a year ago to 67.60 today. They might have “made money” in 2008 (I assume you mean they have positive profits), but the stock is down > 40%.
Andy if you read the title you will notice it says “Just four St. Louis stocks are ahead for the year”
Of course you are right that there are private companies that made money this year. I own a couple myself that did. But that fact has nothing to do with there just being 4 publicly traded companies in St Louis that saw an increase in their stock price in 2008.