Many of Snohomish County’s companies lost ground in the stock markets during the second quarter, with the notable exception of a local bank.
At the end of trading on Wednesday, only four of 15 locally based stocks showed any gains since the quarter began in April.
The Abarim Snohomish County Stock Index was down 5 percent for the quarter. That was worse than the markets as a whole. The Dow Jones industrial average, Standard &Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq indexes were up slightly for the quarter.
“We outperformed during the first quarter and underperformed during the second,” said Tim Raetzloff, creator of the Abarim index.
The biggest local standout was EverTrust Financial Group, which rebounded for a 41-percent gain after a rocky first quarter performance on the Nasdaq market.
Shares of the Everett-based bank company had consistently traded between $16 and $18 for months, but began to inch upward in mid-May, about the time the bank entered talks to sell to KeyCorp.
Share prices went through the roof on June 25, the day the sale was announced, flying up to $30.44 – well above the $25.60 a share KeyCorp is paying to acquire EverTrust. The stock has settled down this week, closing at $25.42 a share Wednesday, up 4 cents.
Most other local banks saw their share prices drop early in the quarter, pushed down by speculation that rising interest rates would hurt the entire mortgage lending industry. However, all three widely traded banks – Cascade, City and Frontier – have seen rebounds in recent weeks.
Frontier stock was selling for about $34 a share in April, fell to around $31 a share but then rebounded, closing at $34.94 on Wednesday.
Likewise, City Bank stocks were trading at more than $34 a share at the start of the quarter, only to hit a low of $29.61 on June 22. Since then, the price has climbed steadily. Shares closed out the quarter at $32.02.
Cascade shares hit a 52-week high on April 5, trading at $21.28. They fell below $16 a share in May, but have since come back to between $17 and $18 a share.
All but one of the locally based biotechnology stocks ended the quarter below where they started.
Shares in ICOS Corp. of Bothell, the largest public company based in the county, lost 19 percent during the quarter. The stock closed trading Wednesday at $29.84, down from $41.28 at the start of 2004.
CombiMatrix Corp. of Mukilteo ended the quarter at $4.35 a share, down 27 percent from March 31’s closing price. Sonus Pharmaceuticals of Bothell lost 31 percent during the quarter, closing at $4.75 a share.
Bothell’s Eden Bioscience Inc. was the biggest slider, down 45 percent for the quarter. Its stock is trading this week at 85 cents per share.
The only local biotech to post any gain for the past three-month period was Helix BioMedix of Bothell. The company, which specializes in wound-healing proteins called peptides, began the quarter at $2 a share and ended at $2.02 a share, a 1 percent gain.
One locally based company also posted a modest increase. SonoSite Inc. of Bothell, which makes portable ultrasound equipment, saw its stock rise more than $2.50 a share for the quarter, ending at $23.99.
Another tech-related company, Unova Corp. of Everett, lost some ground. Shares in the second-largest public company in the county slid from $21.61 a share to $20.25.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
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