Jan. 11--LED BY price collapses at two hallmark Toledo firms, shares of the region's publicly traded companies suffered wider losses than the stock market overall in what was one of the worst years for investors since the Great Depression.

A basket of 16 regional firms with public stock, stretching from Monroe in Michigan to Sandusky in the east and Defiance in the southwest, declined an average of 46 percent in 2008.

That was worse than major stock indexes including the Dow Jones industrial average, which fell 34 percent; the Standard and Poor's 500, down 39 percent; and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite, down 41 percent.

"It's not good, but it's not surprising," said Michael Wilcox, chief executive of Wilcox Financial in Toledo.

The chief culprit: the region's links to the auto industry and the nation's badly battered manufacturing sector.

The 2008 loss for the local market basket followed gains of 4.8 percent in 2007 and 11 percent in 2006. As in past years, results reflect swings in each firm's share price plus any dividends paid. (Seventy percent of firms paid dividends).

The top performer of the local companies was a small Toledo firm involved in wastewater treatment, which achieved a 10-cents-a-share gain to $2.85. N-Viro International Inc., which converts sewage-treatment sludge to soil, doesn't even trade on a major stock exchange and has struggled with profitability for years.

Still, its total return to shareholders was up 4 percent for the year, one of only two local firms which had a positive return. Its shares trade as NVIC.OB.

"We're obviously pleased," said Tim Kasmoch, chief executive. "We have a good little business and we continue to keep on moving forward."

In second place was Health Care REIT Inc., a Toledo real estate investment trust that is a landlord to nursing homes, hospitals, and assisted living facilities nationwide. The shares, which trade under the symbol HCN fell 6 percent in price to $42.20 between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31. But, adding in a $2.70 dividend paid on each share last year, the stock managed a return of less than 1 percent.

REITs, or real estate investment trusts, typically do better than other stocks in down markets because they are required by law to distribute most profits to shareholders through dividends. Attractive returns usually help keep share price stable.

But last year even shares of REITs had big losses, acknowledged Brad Case, vice president at the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts in Washington.