If the third quarter were a boxing match, Colorado stocks would have been punched repeatedly, pummeled on the ropes and shoved hard to the canvas.
And no one rang the bell until Tuesday afternoon.
The Bloomberg Colorado Index, a basket of 102 stocks based in the state, lost 22.3 percent during the quarter, which ended Tuesday. The Standard & Poor’s 500, a proxy for U.S. stocks, fell 10.6 percent during the same time frame.
About 85 percent of stocks in the state suffered losses in the quarter, and nine were down by half or more.
Energy stocks were among the state’s hardest-hit when fears that the credit crisis would slow global growth sent overheated commodity prices spiraling lower from July onward.
“Exploration and production companies tend to track the underlying commodity prices closely, and therein lies the issue,” said John Claxton, a financial consultant with RBC Wealth Management in Denver.
After hitting a high of $147.27 a barrel July 11, oil fell sharply and ended the quarter around $100 a barrel. Natural gas moved from $13.45 per thousand cubic feet at the start of the quarter to about $7.51 on Tuesday.
Those declines devastated commodity-based stocks, one of the market’s few pockets of strength during the first half of the year.
Colorado energy stocks that shed 40 percent or more during the quarter included Stormcat Energy, Kodiak Oil & Gas, Gasco Energy, Bill Barrett, Delta Petroleum, St. Mary Land & Exploration, Venoco and Credo Petroleum.
Even Colorado’s hottest IPO this year, Intrepid Potash, dropped 54.2 percent in the quarter.
Intrepid, which provides an important component for fertilizers, had more than doubled from its April 20 debut through June 30.
Gold shares also got hit, with Newmont Mining down 25.7 percent, Apollo Gold off 53.7 percent and U.S. Gold down 43.1 percent in the quarter.
Newmont’s swoon allowed money- transfer giant Western Union, whose shares held steady during the quarter, to rank as Colorado’s largest public company by market value.
Other large Colorado name brands suffered. Qwest lost 17.8 percent, EchoStar lost 22.8 percent, and Molson Coors was off 14 percent.
Those beaten-down issues might find hope in the stories of CoBiz Financial, up 82.5 percent, and Guaranty Bancorp, up 69.4 percent. The two bank stocks were hit hard when investors rejected financial stocks across the board earlier this year.
“We are not having a record year, but we are having a respectable year this year. We are making money,” said Virginia Berkeley, chief operating officer of CoBiz Bank.
Health-care and medical shares also performed better than other sectors. Array Biopharma rose 63.4 percent, and Emergency Medical Services was up 32 percent.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
