ST. LOUIS — St. Louis public company stocks continued to outperform national indexes year to date through the second quarter, a trend that began in the first quarter.
The stocks of 34 companies based in St. Louis, or with a large presence here, rose nearly 19% through the quarter ended June 30, according to the equally weighted Argent St. Louis Stock Index. That compared with gains of 14.4% in the S&P 500, 12.5% in the Nasdaq, and 12.7% in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
This quarter, Argent added 1847 Goedeker (GOED) to its local index to replace Aegion Corp. (AEGN), a rehabber of infrastructure pipes that was taken private when its buyout by affiliates of New York investment firm New Mountain Capital LLC closed in May. Goedeker, an online appliance and furniture retailer, went public in August.
While the Argent St. Louis index underperformed the S&P 500 in the second quarter itself, it “remains well ahead of national indices on a year-to-date basis,” according to Ithiel Turrado, small cap portfolio analyst for Argent Capital Management. “The last three months seemed to be uneventful but a number of rotations unfolded beneath the surface. High quality companies led during the first half of the quarter but that trend quickly reversed back to what we witnessed during the first quarter, with low quality and economic sensitive companies outperforming.
“All in all, the economy keeps moving forward and pushing the S&P 500 to all-time highs and the St. Louis Index continues to benefit from its outsized exposure to economically sensitive sectors such as energy and financials,” Turrado said.
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