Reported by Bill Kelly, STATEWIDE Correspondent

[Woman at investor's club] "Home Depot made it over 50. Home Depot since they've split have continued to do a real nice steady increase. Motorola has been around 81, 82."
It's Thursday night and the Research Investment Club gathers in Lincoln. Around a table cluttered with investment magazines, annual reports, the day's stock quotations, this group of mostly novice investors takes pride in its successes and gently debates the less stellar market performers.
[Second investor] "Recently we've doubled our money. We purchased it at 14.50 a share and currently I think it's at 32."
[Another investor] "If we hold onto it and just be patient for a while."
[Investor] "Of course, you don't know that. It could hover at 15 for the rest of our lives."
The goal here is pretty basic -- to learn about the stock market and the economy with one nice side benefit.
[Karen Potter] "Hopefully we'll make a little money while we're learning but I think we've really come far in the last few years."
To date, they've gotten back a 30% return on their monthly dues of $30 per person. So far this group of Nebraska investors do not own a single share in a Nebraska-based company. It's for good reason.
[Sandy Sattler Weber, Investment Club President] "It's mainly that the newer companies haven't been public all that long. Most of them don't have a history and most of the criteria for selection usually goes back to at least a five-year history."
[Katrina Kokjohn] "I think most of us have stories of investing in something where we trusted someone and they gave us bad advice. We don't want to be taken anymore so we're doing this so that we can all become intelligent investors and make wise decisions."
Which is not to say there aren't good investments out there with Nebraska companies, just that there isn't enough of a track record on these new fast growing companies. Stockbrokers can purchase shares of over 30 Nebraska publicly held corporations for their clients. What surprises many investors is that Nebraska companies when taken as a whole fairly consistently beat the market averages.
[Owen Sadler] "With the run of six straight days of the Dow going up, the market took a little bit of a pause today."
Owen Sadler, chief trader with the investment firm of Kirkpatrick Pettis, just finished a comparatively calm day in the trading room.
[Owen Sadler] "We're still continuing to see some fairly good buying interest in our Nebraska companies. They seem to be doing just marginally better with the market kind of off just a little today."
[Bill Kelly's question] "Is that pretty common on a day-to-day basis that they'll pretty closely track the rest of the market?"
[Sadler] "Pretty much so. We have seen that there have been some times when the Nebraska stocks actually have done a little bit better than the normal market conditions, maybe just showing a little added strength to the over all market."
Perhaps because they are hometown companies, Nebraskans don't always think of them as hot properties. Perhaps it's because some of the companies are not always household names. But with Nebraska's economy as strong as its ever been, there are a variety of companies, some very new and growing very fast, others that provide good steady returns over the long haul. Peter Lahti is chairman and chief executive officer of Kirkpatrick Pettis.
[Peter Lahti, CEO/Kirkpatrick Pettis] "It's almost a breeding ground for additional small starter companies, a number of which become very successful. If I were going to invest money in the geographic location, I would try and identify a place like Nebraska that's emerging, that's growing like gangbusters."
[Lahti welcoming investors to the Expo] "It's my great pleasure to welcome you to what we hope will be the first of many "Know Your Nebraska Companies" Investor Expo."
Kirkpatrick Pettis maintains an index of Nebraska stocks, a way to track their success as a group in the same way the over all market is evaluated with the Dow Jones Average.
[Lahti] "The companies on that index collectively have outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ Composite Index. Their performance is indicative of the economic boom Nebraska has experienced in the 1990's."
At their investors fair this spring, Kirkpatrick Pettis presented computer system distributor, Inacom, the first time award in honor of its impressive return for investors.
[Lahti] "This is Nebraskans' hard work and ingenuity at its best."
It was the type of success stories investors love to hear about. Later, investors packed Inacom's information session with Chief Financial Officer Dave Guenthner. It was clear many here wanted to make money off the company's success, even if many didn't have a clue what type of business it's involved in to make all those high returns.
[David Guenthner] "I think it always makes a difference for a local company to have the support of people in the local market and to be known and recognized in the community."
But Inacom has over 10 million shares of stock in accounts of investors large and small. When a local investor buys a few dozen more, does that actually trickle back down to help a state's economy in any real direct way? Not directly but...
[Guenthner] "It results in our being able to grow the business. The kinds of rates that are available to us. It allows us to add people in Omaha. It allows us to open facilities like we just opened out in Chalco Valley with our technology center out there. So those kinds of things, I think, spur the local economy."
[Kelly] It's a tiny part of your total capital, too.
[Guenthner] "Every little bit helps."
[Lahti] "You can feel good about investing in Nebraska companies and get paid very handsomely for it."
That, of course, depends on the company. There are huge success stories like Transaction Systems Architects, the company that developed much of the software for instant teller machines. There are some weak players like the Austin's Steakhouse chain. Losses in excess of $1 million have kept the price per share under $1 this past year.
Bob Carey of Nike Securities spent a lot of time looking for good Nebraska investments. His company assembled an investment trust, an opportunity for small investors to buy a portfolio of Nebraska companies.
[Kelly] Does that actually create a diversified investment?
[Bob Carey] "I think it does because of the fact that there are so many different industries represented. In general the companies that are in the portfolio are very focused on one or two lines of business and we know exactly what it is we're getting from an industry standpoint."
Carey says while local investors may not directly boost the economy, it may help.
[Carey] "As far as benefiting the state, I think any time the investors are comfortable owning stocks in the state, that creates a better environment for capital formation for the future, which I think can only help the economy."
At the investors fair, companies had their chance to make a pitch for local investment dollars.
[Valmont spokesperson] "I expected a lot of people to know about Valmont since we are a local company and have been a local company for 50 years, but I'm surprised that there are a lot of people that have no idea what we do since we are a manufacturing company."
Katrina and Martha were deep into research for their Lincoln investment club. This time a chain of motels based out of Norfolk.
[Martha] "I think we're mainly in it for ourselves but I don't think it would hurt the Nebraska economy or anything at all. Sometimes I feel a little more confident in Nebraska companies than some of the areas. You don't know them as well."
Professional brokers say that's the best reason to invest in local companies. Even if you don't necessarily know the latest financial gossip about a local company, it can be easier to see for yourself if a company is growing fast or starting to flounder. So what Nebraska companies are the best investment? Well, that can vary from year to year, even day-to-day. And as an investment prospectus will say, past performance is no guarantee of past gains or losses.

With the help of the Kirkpatrick Pettis Investor Index, we did go back and take a look at the best performing companies so far this year. The companies you're likely most familiar with -- Union Pacific, First Data, Valmont -- were not among the top performers. In fact, all three were well below the market's average gain this year. And the worst performers might surprise you as well. Both West Teleservices and Sitel, major players in the telemarketing business, performed poorly in this bull market. A major financial company in Lincoln, First Commerce, dropped 13%. And last year's top performer, Inacom, and beef processor, IBP, have barely moved from the start of the year. The biggest winners -- Data Documents of Omaha; the Kearney-based retail chain, The Buckle; Lincoln's Transcrypt, a company that invents ways to scramble and secure electronic data; and CSG Systems, a company providing computerized billing for companies that saw its stock price rise just short of 200%.
[Katrina] "Does anyone have a strong feeling that we want to buy anything now?"
[Karen] "If you want to replace Sunrise Medical with a different medical devices company, this would be it, I think, although they're expensive also right now."
The Research Investment Club will wait a little longer before it considers buying Nebraska companies.
[Sandy] "Looking at the Nebraska companies this early in our investing might be that we would do it as a conscientious move as opposed to maybe a logistical move. Right now we have just been trying to do more logistical type things and just kind of get a broad idea of what's all out there."
But there is some real interest in doing so, not so much because they want to help out a local company by investing but because it would be easier to keep an eye on the local boys. That improves the chances of making some money back from a successful investment. For Statewide, I'm Bill Kelly.