The University of Miami Business School’s (MBS) Florida 50 Index (UMIAMIFL), which is calculated by Standard and Poors (S&P) Custom Indices, finished the first half of 2019 with a gain of 19.88%, and twelve of its firms saw their stock prices rise by more than 25%.
The modest gain in the Florida index, which tracks all Florida-based firms in the S&P Composite 1500® Index, edged out the broader S&P 500 by 2.53% and the S&P 1500 by 2.68%, both of which also experienced very moderate increases. The S&P 500 in 2019 has logged its best start to a year since 2007, and the Dow Jones in 2019 notched its best month of June since 1938.
The 12 firms in the Florida index that saw first quarter gains of over 25% were:
- TopBuild Corp. – BLD (+83.91%)
- World Fuel Services – INT (+67.96%)
- Harris Corp. – HRS (+40.46%)
- SBA Communications – SBAC (+38.88%)
- Roper Technologies – ROP (+37.42%)
- Marriott Vacations Worldwide – VAC (+36.72%)
- Faro Industries – FARO (+29.38%)
- SEACOR Holdings – CKH (+28.41%)
- Cross Country Healthcare – CCRN (+27.97%)
- Tech Data Corp. – TECD (+27.86%)
- Jabil Inc. – JBL (+27.47%)
- Norwegian Cruise Lines – NCLH (+26.52%)
The University of Miami’s Florida 50 Index, established by the Miami Business School in 2016, is based on the capitalizations of all Florida-based large-, mid- and small-cap companies included in the S&P 1500 index having common stock listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ. It is the very first custom S&P Dow Jones index ever owned by a university and the only index that focuses solely on public companies headquartered in an individual U.S. state.
"The performance of the Miami Business School’s Florida 50 Index for the first half of 2019 shows that even in a market that has rebounded nicely from the fourth quarter of 2018, Florida-based firms as a cross section are more than keeping pace with their counterparts across the country.” said Seth Levine, CPA, an accounting lecturer at the School and creator of the index.
The twelve largest companies in the Florida 50 Index have a combined market capitalization of over $300 billion. Florida’s GDP, which is just shy of $1 trillion, rivals that of countries like Spain and Mexico, and thus investors would do well to keep an eye on this index in the future as they weigh their own investment decisions.”
The index, available under ticker symbol UMIAMIFL, is calculated by S&P Dow Jones Custom Indices and can be monitored in real time via Yahoo! Finance.
