CHEMICAL STOCKS STAR IN QUARTER

THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF 2006 were good for chemical company stocks but not so good for the shares of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. C&EN's index of chemical company stocks beat the major indexes, such as the Dow Jones industrial average, for the quarter, while drug and biotech indexes lagged behind. C&EN's index of 25 chemical companies scored an increase of 8.4% from the last trading day of 2005 to close at 212.4 (all C&EN indexes are based on 1992 = 100) on March 31. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 37%, the Standard & Poor's 500 was up 4.2%, and the NASDAQ rose 6.1%. Not so fortunate were C&EN's pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical indexes. The drug index increased 2.7% to close at 3570, and the index of biotech companies was hardly changed, rising just 0.4% to finish the quarter at 569.9. With the strong chemical stock recovery in ...