Jul. 1--The stocks of the Richmond area's largest publicly traded companies rallied in the second quarter but not nearly as much as the national indices.

The Richmond index of 20 public companies rose 7.6 percent during the second quarter, which ended yesterday.

By comparison, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 11 percent and the S&P 500 index increased 15.2 percent, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite shot up 20.1 percent.

James Cox, a financial planner with Harris Financial Group in Colonial Heights, said the area's lack of technology companies helped keep the index down.

"Most of the growth and performance was in technology [stocks]," Cox said.

"The S&P has about 30 percent technology, which is why you saw such a bump. Technology is blatantly absent in the Richmond index."

Richmond-area companies may do better in the third quarter as the rest of the economy picks up, he said.

Eight of the 20 local stocks outperformed two of the major indices, despite the overall lower performance of the local index. Sixteen stocks increased in value, one saw no change and only three saw declines.

The Bloomberg-created Richmond index is made up of the largest publicly traded companies with headquarters in the region that have more than $50 million in market capitalization.

Four companies have been added to the local index since the first quarter, and three have been deleted.

Chesapeake Corp., Circuit City Stores Inc. and LandAmerica Financial Group were removed to reflect the sale of Chesapeake to an investment group and the bankruptcy liquidations of the other companies.

Newcomers are Community Bankers Trust Corp., Insmed Inc., Star Scientific Inc. and Union Bankshares Corp.

The biggest stock gainers in the quarter were Genworth Financial, up 267.9 percent; Massey Energy Co., up 93 percent; and NewMarket Corp., up 52 percent.

The sectors hurt the most in the market crash last fall were commodities and financial companies, so they are seeing the biggest gains, Cox said.

Genworth, a financial stock, is a Henrico County-based insurer; Massey and NewMarket are in the commodities business. Richmond-based Massey is a coal company, and Richmond-based NewMarket is the parent company of Afton Chemical Corp. and Ethyl Corp.

"Genworth and Massey got hammered in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter this year," Cox said.

While the Richmond Index underperformed the national indices this quarter, it outperformed them in the first quarter.

Local stocks rose 4.9 percent in the first quarter, while the Dow saw a 13.3 percent decline, the S&P slid 11.7 percent and Nasdaq lost 3.1 percent.

The local index has a hefty portion of companies whose products do better on the downside and don't gain as much on the upside, said Chris Konstantinos, a portfolio manager at Riverfront Investment Group in Chesterfield County.

For example, Dominion Resources Inc., an energy company, and Altria Group, parent company of Philip Morris USA, make consumer staples that people buy whether the economy is good or bad.

Dominion stock rose 7.8 percent in the second quarter. Altria saw a 2.3 percent gain.

Goochland County-based CarMax Inc. rose 18.2 percent in the second quarter, as people began to buy big-ticket items.

The biggest loser on the local index was Star Scientific Inc., a Petersburg company aimed at reducing toxins in tobacco leaf and tobacco smoke.

Star stock ended the quarter down 79.2 percent, after it lost a lawsuit two weeks ago against Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American Inc. ------

Contact Carol Hazard at (804) 775-8023 or chazard@timesdispatch.com.

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