In a year of widespread market carnage, Colorado stocks were bloodied even more badly than their national counterparts.

While national indexes were down roughly 35 percent to 40 percent, the Bloomberg Rocky Mountain News Colorado Index cratered, falling 51 percent. Just three Colorado companies out of 95 finished 2008 in positive territory.

The total wipeout ends an impressive run in which the Bloomberg Colorado index beat the S&P 500 every year from 2003 to 2007, sometimes by double-digit margins.

Colorado's corporate population was a magic mix of mostly small and micro-cap stocks with a heavy concentration of energy and mining companies. With few banks or financial companies, the Bloomberg Colorado was holding up through the first six months of 2008, down just 6 percent while most indexes posted double-digit declines.

The market chaos of the third quarter, followed by the steep drop in oil prices that whacked Colorado's energy sector, wrecked all that.

The Rocky Mountain News tracks stock prices for all Colorado-headquartered companies, including closed-end mutual funds, that trade on a major exchange and have a market value of $10 million or more. The Rocky segments the list into larger and smaller companies, with $250 million of market capitalization as the dividing line.

The three stocks in positive territory for the year were all among the larger set.

Denver-based Royal Gold gained 61.2 percent for the year, buoyed by a strong December. The company doesn't operate mines. Instead, it acquires royalty rights, allowing it to profit from gains in gold prices without the same risk of cost increases as an extraction company.

"We receive our revenues free of cost, which is a very advantageous way to own gold," Executive Chairman Stanley Dempsey told the cable channel CNBC last week.

Little was golden for most Colorado companies, though, as just 18 of 44 companies beat the S&P 500's 38.5 percent decline. The same number of larger companies - 18 - lost half or more of their value.

Smaller companies' performance was even worse. The top performer, Denver's Credo Petroleum, lost 15.1 percent. Just five of 51 beat the S&P, and 45 of the 51 lost half or more of their value. Fifteen stocks lost 80 percent or more.

The worst performer was Niwot shoemaker Crocs, the former highflier that lost 96.5 percent in 2008. Once a multibillion-dollar company in market capitalization, Crocs is valued by investors at just $102 million.

Finance Editor David Milstead can be reached at milstead@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2648.