The Tribune/Bloomberg Index, which measures the stock price performance of Utah's 35 largest publicly held corporations, posted a 1.4 percent loss for the period, compared with a Dow Jones industrial average gain of 8.7 percent and an S&P 500 increase of 7 percent.

"What happened was large-cap companies significantly outperformed the market during the downturn in May and June," said Jonathan Ferrell, manager of the Top Flight Long Short Fund based in Pleasant Grove. "Since then, large-cap and small-cap companies have been moving in lockstep."

With only a few exceptions, The Tribune/Bloomberg Index is made up of small-cap companies, a term that refers to corporations with $1 billion or less in market capitalization - a figure calculated by multiplying the number of shares a company has outstanding by its stock price.

Although as a group Utah's publicly held corporations failed to achieve the gains of the Dow and the S&P 500, a number of individual companies saw increases in their share prices that would have made even the most seasoned Wall Street investor envious.

Shares of Orem-based iMergent Inc., a provider of e-commerce software for small businesses and entrepreneurs, increased 114 percent during the first nine months, dwarfing the 71 percent increased posted by General Motors, the Dow's best-performing stock.

Early last month, iMergent reported its revenue for the fourth quarter of its 2006 fiscal year increased to $28.2 million from $10.9 million in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2005. Net income was $2.2 million, or 17 cents per share, for the three months that ended June 30, compared with a loss of $8.3 million, or 69 cents per share, for the comparable period a year earlier.

"In January we enhanced our technology by introducing StoresOnline Pro, which adds dozens of features compared to earlier versions of the software," said Don Danks, iMergent's chief executive. "And we drove growth in our dollar volume by expanding our sales force. Just last month we added our seventh and eighth sales teams, which helps expand the geographical reach of the company."

Schiff Nutrition International, formerly known as Weider Nutrition, saw its stock gain 37 percent through the first nine months.

The company recently reported its fourth quarter sales reached $45.3 million, compared with $39.9 million reported for the same period a year earlier.

That 13 percent gain in revenue was driven by a nearly 20 percent increase in Schiff's branded sales, said Joseph W. Baty, chief financial officer. And that was coupled with a healthy increase in Schiff's cash flow and a marked improvement in operating earnings.

1-800-Contacts rounded out the top three-performing Utah companies. Its shares went up 28 percent in the first three quarters of 2006.

"The biggest thing for us so far this year was the announcement of our AquaSoft Singles, which radically changes how contact lenses are packaged," said Kevin McCallum, spokesman for 1-800-Contacts. "It makes it much more convenient for wearers to have access to their contact lenses anywhere."

Despite such performances, half of the 35 Utah companies that make up the Tribune/Bloomberg Index lost ground in terms of their share price in the first three quarters of this year.

Shares of Nature's Sunshine Products, which lost its Nasdaq stock market listing after it failed to file its 2005 annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, lost 42 percent of their value.

However the company, which markets encapsulated herbs and vitamins using a multilevel marketing organization, still declared its regular quarterly dividends and hasn't broken that streak since 1988.

Novell's shares are down 31 percent this year.

Two weeks ago the company reported it received a delisting warning from Nasdaq and a notice from Wells Fargo bank that it was in default on some of its debentures because of its failure to file its financial reports with the SEC.

The company reported in August that it was conducting an internal review of its stock option grants. And it indicated that it would miss the filing deadline for its third quarter as a result of that review.

steve@sltrib.com