It has been a tough year so far for Utah's leading publicly held companies, though the landscape was not without its bright spots.
The Salt Lake Tribune/Bloomberg Index, which measures the stock-price performance of Utah's 27 largest public companies, fell 11 percent during the first quarter, with only nine corporations seeing their shares gain in value.
Still, the performance matched the rocky showing of the S&P 500, down 11.7 percent, and did a little better than the Dow Jones industrial average, off 13.3 percent.
Despite the overall market's wild swings in the first quarter, in one sense the nation saw a return to a more normal pattern, said John Bird, president of Albion Financial Group in Salt Lake City.
"During the last half of 2008 it seemed that no matter what a company said -- good or bad -- the price of their shares would go down," Bird said. "Lately, though, when companies announce news that is better than expected, their shares have often gone up."
And there were a number of Utah companies who had good news to tell in the first three months.
Myriad Genetics, which was one of only two Utah companies listed on the Tribune/Bloomberg Index to see gains in their share prices in 2008, continued its winning ways. After recording a 43 percent gain in 2008, the company saw its shares advance another 37 percent in the first quarter. The stock trades in the $45 range.
In the final week of 2008, Myriad revealed it was launching its sixth molecular diagnostic product. Known as Prezeon, the test is marketed to researchers and physicians, and is designed to help them understand the sensitivity of cancer patients to a range of chemotherapy drugs.
"We've been very pleased with the reception Prezeon has received," said Peter Meldrum, Myriad's president. "Also, we received a favorable recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that suggested OB/GYNs should be using our products to routinely test patients who have a family history of breast and ovarian cancer."
Another of Utah's stellar performers was Security National Financial Corp., whose shares gained 18 percent and trade in the $2 range. It was the third-best-performing Utah stock for the period.
Earlier this month, the company announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Security National Insurance Co., had completed its acquisition of Mississippi-based Southern Security Life Insurance.
"We continue to grow our life [insurance] segment through strategic acquisitions and direct [policy] writings," Jason Overbaugh, the national sales director for Security National, said in a statement. "Combining with a company such as Southern Security gives us an increased presence in the attractive southern markets."
Utah Medical Products also made the list of best-performing companies with its shares having advanced 5 percent. "Business has been pretty stable for us even in this environment," said Kevin Cornwell, the president of Utah Medical, whose shares are trading in the $22 range.
Cornwell, noting that his company saw a sharp 25 percent drop in share price late last year, suggested the first-quarter gain was a reaction by investors to that decline.
Bright spots aside, there were 17 Utah companies in the index that saw their share prices decline in the January-February-March period. Many were operating in industries hard hit by the recession.
SkyWest Inc., the St. George-based airline holding company, saw its shares fall 33 percent. Shares of Headwaters Inc., which counts on the construction industry for much of its revenue, were down 53 percent.
And the worst-performing Utah stock was Zions Bancorp, which operates in the battered financial sector. Zions shares, which are trading in the $10 range off a 52-week high of nearly $55, declined 60 percent.
