Health-care stocks secured five of the top 10 spots in a ranking of 2014 stock-market performance by members of The Inquirer's Philly50, the list of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the region.

It was a strong year overall. Only eight of the 50 stocks saw their values decline last year. Half the decliners were in chemicals and manufacturing, led by a 24 percent drop in the share price of FMC Corp., which had a tumultuous year, announcing and then dropping a plan to split into two companies.

Click to enlarge

The predominance of health-care stocks among the biggest Philly50 gainers, which are shown with percentage changes in stock prices for all of 2014, reflects not just the sector's importance to the region's economy, but also national trends.

Last year marked the fourth straight year that health-care stocks - in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index - outperformed the broad market.

Despite those long-term gains that have led to relatively high stock prices for many health-care stocks, J.P. Morgan continued to recommend the sector in its 2015 outlook.

An aging population and the declining number of uninsured people were the reasons.

The best performer in the local health-care sector - which includes pharmaceutical firms, a hospital operator, and a major drug distributor - was Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Chesterbrook.

See the rest here:

Region's health-care stocks surged in 2014