U.S. stock markets came out of the blocks running in 2012, sprinting to their best start since 1998. And Colorado’s public companies, for the most part, kept pace.
The S&P 500 rose 12 percent in the first quarter, while the Nasdaq composite index gained 18.7 percent and the Dow Jones industrial average rose 8.14 percent.
The Bloomberg Colorado index, a basket of 88 stocks based in the state, climbed 11.7 percent.
“It was a knockout quarter,” said Mike Gegen, a financial adviser with RBC Wealth Management in the Denver Tech Center.
Stock markets managed to cover more ground in three months than what they usually average for an entire year, he said. Sixteen Colorado stocks are up 40 percent or more so far this year.
Clovis Oncology, which is developing compounds to treat pancreatic and other types of cancer, gained 80.6 percent, making it the state’s top performer in the first quarter.
The Boulder biotech netted $130 million in a November initial public offering. On March 22, the company registered for a second offering to raise $75 million.
Pending health care reforms, patent expirations and cash-rich acquirers all combined to put some biotech stocks back in favor with investors after a long stretch of disinterest, Gegen said.
Bonanza Creek Energy, a December IPO, was the state’s second-best-performing stock, with a 74.8 percent gain. Venoco, which is developing California oil reserves, rose 60.1 percent and ranked fourth.
Two alternative-energy companies also appear to have gotten a boost from higher oil prices. Ascent Solar rose 61.5 percent, and Gevo, a biofuels-maker, popped 46.1 percent.
Investors changed the types of stocks they favored, said Jeff Nelligan, senior vice president at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Denver.
“It was a ‘risk on’ quarter,” he said.
Utilities, the top-performing sector last year, is the laggard so far this year. Financial and bank shares, beaten down in 2011, came back strong.
Ascent Solar went from last year’s worst performer, down 88.4 percent, to the third-best in the first quarter, although its shares remain in penny-stock range.
By contrast, last year’s top-performing Colorado stock, Midway Gold, fell the most of any Colorado stock in the quarter, 32.2 percent.
Although gold prices held their own, mining company shares sold off.
Newmont Mining, the state’s largest company in market value, fell 14.6 percent.
Natural-gas producers also were hit hard by concerns of too much supply.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410. asvaldi@denverpost.com,
