The empty group of publicly traded companies that calls South Carolina home left investors with a feeling of emptiness for the most part last year.
The shares of just four of the 16 companies in the state of Palmetto that are listed on a major US stock exchange ended 2020 higher than where they started 12 months earlier.
For the rest, they recorded declines ranging from about 4 percent to almost 10 times that. On average, the group fell by 13% in market value, compared with a 12% gain in the previous year.
The end result was that a local buying approach to stock selection did not work in 2020, when the larger and more diverse Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices delivered heady returns of 43.6% and 16.3%, respectively.
Followers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average did well with a 7.2 percent gain to the upside in an otherwise sad year that included a widespread fainting spring in stock prices when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The state’s newest publicly traded company set the pace among South Carolina’s peer group in 2020.
Rock Hill-based 3D systems were one of the few winners among the declining stability of South Carolina stocks last year. File / provided
HireQuest Inc., based in Goose Creek, a provider of temporary labor and other personnel services listed on Nasdaq, rose nearly 45 percent when the closing bell rang on December 31. Its poorly traded shares ended the year at $ 10.
The next big winner comes from Rock Hill. 3D Systems Inc., a developer and manufacturer of three-dimensional printing technology, won in 2019, when its shares plunged 14%. But it rebounded last year, up almost 19%.
Not far behind was World Acceptance Corp, a former Greenville-based payments financier with 1,200 stores in 16 states. Its shares rose 17 percent in 2020.
The only other South Carolina company to end the year of red was another consumer finance game from Upstate: Regional Management Corp., which is based in Greer, barely managed to balance itself with a modest 1.5% gain.
For the biggest loser, this distinction goes to a manufacturer that showed what the market gives, it can also take off, at least in part.
Delta Apparel Inc., owner of the Salt Life and Coast brands, soared 80 percent in 2019, making it the fastest growing company in the state based on that metric. Greenville renounced some of those gains last year, when its shares fell 37%.
In a state that has never been home to an abundance of publicly traded companies, the shrinking of the local stock line saw two notable outflows in 2020, both from the banking sector.
South State Corp., formerly from Orangeburg and after Columbia, can still be bought and sold on Nasdaq under the symbol “SSB”. But, technically, it became a Florida stock in mid-2020, after the company’s $ 2.3 billion marriage to CenterState Bank, which moved its corporate headquarters to eastern Tampa.
Likewise, the owner of the CresCom franchise also left South Carolina last year. But in this case, the action did not survive the movement. Carolina Financial Corp. shares were withdrawn from the stock market after United Bank of West Virginia invaded and bought the Charleston bank for $ 818 million.
Contact John McDermott at 843-937-5572 or follow him on Twitter at @byjohnmcdermott