It's been a rocky ride, but six months after the Sept. 11 attacks many of L.A.'s stocks are doing just fine.

Powered by strength in the fundamentals of a number of technology, media and homebuilding companies, the Los Angeles Business Journal Index of 200 publicly traded companies has seen a 7.3 percent increase in since Sept. 10.

The LABJ gain outpaced the performance of the S&P 500, which was up 5.6 percent as of March 13. At its lowest point, in the days immediately after trading resumed following the attacks, the LABJ index traded 14 percent below its Sept. 10 level.

Led by a handful of dot-coins that have re-emerged with upbeat earnings and re-jiggered business models, eight of the 25 biggest gainers have roots in the Internet. Hopes of a rebound in the slumping advertising market helped a surge in media stocks, with five among the top 25. The region's large homebuilders -- buoyed by historically low interest rates -- were also among the leaders.

Not all Internet and media companies enjoyed the ride, however. GenesisIntermedia Inc. (down 99.8 percent since Sept. 10) and Homestore.com Inc. (down 92 percent) were among the 25 biggest losers.

The lesson to be drawn, said Victor Hwang, chief operating officer at Larta, a Los Angeles think-tank for technology businesses, is that fundamentals appear to be returning to the fore of investors' thinking.

"If you look at different sectors, it doesn't jump out at you that any one sector did better than any other. That shows (investors are focusing on) whether a company is making it or not, not just whether or not a sector is hot," he said.
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Among the biggest gainers in the last six months were United Online Inc., formed following the merger of Internet service providers NetZero and Juno; Overture Services Inc. the renamed and refocused GoTo.com; Stamps.com Inc., Ticketmaster and ArtistDirect Inc.

Share prices for those firms jumped between 50 and 200 percent between Sept. 10 and last week. For some it was a change in business strategy, others just plain did better.

Take ArtistDirect. With the exception of its name the company bears little resemblance to its former self. Once a dot-com hybrid committed to building a talent agency, record label and Internet portal all-in-one, ArtistDirect has been rewarded by investors as it slashed Internet operations, left the talent business and formed a new record label with billionaire music mogul Ted Field as its new chief executive. The company, which executed a 1-for-l0 reverse stock split in July, closed at $9.90 on March 13, up 65 percent since Sept. 10.

United Online also did a 180. Having aggressively touted the benefits of its free ISP model, the business has been slowly directing customers to its pay services. It also slashed its reliance on ad revenue. For the three months ended Dec. 31 2001, the first full quarter operating as a merged company, 15 percent of United Online's revenue came from advertising, as opposed to more than 90 percent in the like year-earlier quarter.

"A lot of these stocks were beaten down so much last year. As the market sees that they're becoming serious about being profitable it has responded," said Brad Jones, a partner at Redpoint Venture Capital.

Jones' firm has a 7 percent stake in Stamps.com, which has seen its stock jump 80 percent since Sept. 10. The company, whose stock closed at $4.11 on March 13, has cut costs, seen its revenues climb and rolled out several new products.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, some investors were so sure that the homebuilding sector was doomed they bet against it. "You had a lot of people coming out of Sept. 11 looking for a decline in the group, looking at it as an easy short," said Scott Campbell, an equity analyst with Raymond James & Associates. "Surprisingly, housing activity has been resilient. I would attribute that to lower interest rates."

Los Angeles-based homebuilders KB Home and Ryland Group Inc. saw share prices increase by 51 and 96 percent, respectively, in the last six months. Campbell said that since both companies derive much of their business from first-time homebuyers, lower interests rates were especially helpful in boosting the bottom line.

Then there was Calprop Corp., a Marina del Rey designer and builder of single family detached and town homes. Its shares took a hit after the Sept. 11 attacks and failed to recover when liquidity problems came to light. Since trading resumed Sept. 17, Calprop's stock has fallen more than 32 percent.