U.S. markets take off in 3Q , leaving Colo. index behind
After outperforming U.S. indexes in second quarter, Colorado stocks dip in third
Colorado stocks as a group underperformed in U.S. stock market indexes in the third quarter after handily beating them in the second.
The Bloomberg Colorado index, a priceweighted basket of 66 stocks based in the state, fell 3.01 percent. By contrast, the S&P 500 index rose 7.2 percent, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 9.01 percent and the Nasdaq composite gained 7.14 percent.
That underperformance was a reversal of the second quarter, when the Colorado index rose 14.1 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 2.93 percent.
“A trade war and higher tariff threats between the United States and China cap tured most of the economic headlines during the third quarter of 2018, and as we head into the last three months of the year, this doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon,” said Fred Taylor, president of Northstar Investment Advisors in Denver.
Littleton’s CPI Card Group was Colorado’s top performing company from July to September. Its shares rose 69.5 percent, most of that coming after the company handed investors a positive earnings surprise on Aug. 9.
Analysts had expected the credit card maker to report a 25 centashare loss for the second quarter. Instead, it reported a gain of 10 cents. But CPI shares, which closed at $3.39 on Friday, have a long way to go to reach the $60ashare level they traded at in late 2015.
Other Colorado stocks leading the performance chart in the third quarter included Lakewood uranium miner Energy Fuels, up 44.5 percent; Denverbased email marketing platform SendGrid, up 38.7 percent; and The Simply Good Foods Co., a Denver maker of nutritional food items, which rose 34.7 percent.
“The market was really humming in the second quarter with strong corporate earnings and a booming economy providing the fuel,” said Mike Gegen, a senior vice president at The Gegen Group at Robert W. Baird & Co. in Cherry Creek.
Health care was the top performing sector nationally. But some Colorado biotech firms got hammered — including Ampio Pharmaceuticals, which shed 76.9 percent of its value.