Jan. 4--Despite the worst year for stocks in nearly 80 years, a few central Ohio companies were able to find a little daylight in the darkness of 2008.

How dark?

The Dow Jones industrial average ended 2007 at 13,264, dropped as low as 7,552 on Nov. 20, and closed the year at 8,776, a loss of 33.8 percent.

Still, three area companies -- an insurance firm, a bank and a homebuilder -- were able to buck the trend.

The meager honor roll included: State Auto, which finished the year up 14.3 percent at $30.06; Park National, which was up 11.2 percent at $71.75; and M/I Homes, which lost 73 percent in 2007 but was up 4 cents and 0.4 percent in 2008, closing at $10.54.

The 23 other local, publicly traded companies all saw their stock prices drop in 2008.

How Park National and State Auto did it is a lesson in the old-fashioned, conservative business model that many companies have strayed from in recent years. And, despite their successes, officials from both companies know better than to boast during uncertain economic times.

"The market does what it wants to do," said John Kozak, chief financial officer of Park National Corp., the parent company of Park National Bank.

And what the market wanted to do in 2008 was plummet, fueled by rising unemployment, a credit crunch, near-meltdown of financial institutions, a decline in home values and skyrocketing foreclosures.

Steve English, CFO of State Auto, likened predicting how a stock will perform to "interpreting the tea leaves."

It's an inexact science, said another observer.

"The difficult part of the market this (past) year is companies that appeared to be healthy and have good fundamentals, their prices went down," said Eric Bishoff, president of Bishoff Financial Group in Gahanna.

The fundamentals normally used to evaluate stocks have been thrown out, he said, in an economy that has been in recession for more than a year, creating a climate that has clobbered most stocks.

How did they do it?

The success of Park National and State Auto is simple, said Brad Huffman, an analyst with Future Finances, a Worthington financial-planning firm.

"The common theme for companies that did well is they avoided the subprime mortgage mess," he said.

Banks and insurance companies with significant exposure to the mortgage meltdown paid the price.

For example, Huntington Bancshares inherited a relationship involving about $1.5 billion in problem loans when it purchased Sky Financial Group in 2007. The Columbus-based bank's stock dropped 48.1 percent in 2008.

National City Corp. had even more exposure to subprime mortgages. Its stock crashed from $38 in early 2007 to less than $2 at one point last year before the Cleveland-based bank was purchased by PNC Financial Services Group for $5.6 billion with money from the federal bailout program.