Most Richmond-area companies couldn’t escape the stock market slaughter of 2008, posting large declines for the year. The Bloomberg-created index of the 20 largest publicly traded companies with headquarters in the Richmond area ended the year down 40.45 percent. That was worse than three widely used stock indices. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended the year down 33.84 percent and 38.5 percent, respectively. The Nasdaq composite index fell 40.5 percent during 2008.

Most Richmond-area companies couldn’t escape the stock market slaughter of 2008, posting large declines for the year. The Bloomberg-created index of the 20 largest publicly traded companies with headquarters in the Richmond area ended the year down 40.45 percent. That was worse than three widely used stock indices. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended the year down 33.84 percent and 38.5 percent, respectively. The Nasdaq composite index fell 40.5 percent during 2008.