Stock Watch 2020 Friday, January 8, 2021 6:00 AM
What a ride 2020 has been. The year started and ended on a bull run, but it was the events in between that shaped 2020: a global pandemic, spiking unemployment, monetary and fiscal stimulus from the Federal Reserve and Congress, an election year and the development of COVID-19 vaccines. All-time highs were seen for all three major indexes: the Nasdaq, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. So where does that leave Iowa’s publicly traded companies? Most of them took a tumble in 2020.
Six of Iowa’s 18 public companies ended the year with gains in their stock prices, led by Ames-based Renewable Energy Group Inc. with a 162.78% gain for the year. The second-highest was Ames-based Workiva Inc. with a 117.88% gain. Four Iowa companies had double-digit percentage gains.