Jan. 11--Garry Mills would like nothing more than for people to think him a stock market wizard.

But the truth, he said, is that 12 months ago he made a lucky guess. Oh, it was "an educated guess," Mr. Mills allowed.

However, that pick -- Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a firm that makes vaccines, including the only U.S.-approved vaccine for anthrax -- helped Mr. Mills, 55, of Waterville, win The Blade's 2008 Stock Market Game.

In a disastrous year in which the Dow Jones industrial average lost $1.2 trillion, or 34 percent of its value, just five of last year's contestants chose portfolios that finished above the $40,000 starting point. The remaining 872 finished in the red.

Scott Anderson, a financial adviser at the Toledo office of Smith Barney, one of the contest's co-sponsors, said the September meltdown of the financial markets also resulted in the Standard & Poor's 500 index dropping 39 percent and the technology-heavy Nasdaq sinking 41 percent for the year.

"It really was a matter of being swept up in a tidal wave," he said. "You had the broadest market sell-off since 1931 ... and only 5 percent of stocks finished up."

Every market sector was pounded, some harder than others, he added.

That makes Mr. Mills' 79 percent portfolio gain all the more surprising. His entry finished at $71,467.58, gaining nearly 17 percent in December alone.

Entrants selected two New York Stock Exchange and two Nasdaq stocks, each trading above $5, before the beginning of 2008. A hypothetical $40,000 was divided evenly among the four.

"I read the Wall Street Journal every day, and you start picking up on trends going on. It doesn't hurt if you pay attention to what's going on," said Mr. Mills, a parks division employee of the city of Sylvania.

"Yes, they were guesses, but these were all educated guesses. ... I basically tried to pick out four I thought were going to do well," he said.

Emergent BioSolutions was the key. "Biotech stocks are very speculative, and they can have wild swings," Mr. Mills said. "They [Emergent] have a good product in their anthrax vaccine and it was a stock that had a lot of potential. For any of these stocks, I figured if they doubled, you'd do well."

Emergent BioSolutions ended 2008 as the best performing stock among all small-cap and midcap issues. It began the year at $5 a share and finished at $26, a spectacular 416 percent gain.

Mr.