The long-awaited housing recovery helped boost stock prices for carpet makers during the first half of 2015, making Mohawk Industries and the Dixie Group the top performing local companies in the market so far this year among Chattanooga's major publicly traded companies.
Local stocks so far in 2015
* Mohawk Industries, closed Tuesday at $190.90 per share, up 22.9 percent* Dixie Group, closed Tuesday at $10.50 per share, up 14.5 percent* Astec Industries, closed Tuesday at $41.82 per share, up 6.4 percent* Unum Group, closed Tuesday at $35.75 per share, up 2.5 percent* Miller Industries, closed Tuesday at $19.95 per share, down 4 percent* Covenant Transport, closed Tuesday at $25.06 per share, down 7.6 percent* CBL & Associates Properties, closed Tuesday at $16.20 per share, down 16.6 percent
Mohawk is up nearly 23 percent so far this year on the strength of its acquisitions across the global floorcovering business. The Dixie Group is up 14.5 percent so far this year through gains in market share and the improving market for carpet this year, both from remodeling and new home starts.
But while about half of Chattanooga's publicly traded companies have boosted share values so far in 2015, the other half have lost value as fears of rising interest rates have cut the value of what were previously some high-flying local stocks.
In the second quarter which ended Tuesday, the Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 0.2 percent to close at 2,063.11, its first quarterly decline since dropping 1 percent in the last three months of 2012.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 1.1 percent in the first half of 2015 to close at 17,619.51.
The Greek debt default this week spooked investors Monday when the markets suffered their biggest losses in more than a year. Stock analysts said they don't anticipate continued declines in the market, however.
"Whatever happens here, even if it's the worst-case scenario and Greece drops out (of the euro), the pullback probably wouldn't be gigantic," said Scott Wren, a senior global equity strategist at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute.