University of Miami Business School's Florida 50 Stock Index gains more than 28% during 2017

CORAL GABLES, Fla., Jan. 5, 2018

The twelve firms in the Florida index with gains of more than 40% were TopBuild Corp. (+112.75%), PetMed Express (+97.23%), Marriott Vacations Worldwide  (+59.35%), ILG Inc. (+56.74%), CSX Corp. (+53.10%),  KLX Inc. (+51.30%), Lennar Corp. (+47.31%), PGT Innovations (+47.16%), WellCare Health Plans (+46.71%), Royal Caribbean Cruises (+45.39%), Roper Technologies (+41.47%), and Affiliated Managers Group (+41.26%).

UM's Florida 50 Index, which was established by Miami Business in 2016, is based on the capitalizations of all Florida-based large-, mid- and small-cap companies included in the S&P 1500 index having common stock listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ. It is the very first custom S&P Dow Jones index to be owned by a university and the only index that focuses solely on public companies headquartered in an individual U.S. state.

"The 2017 performance of the University of Miami Business School's Florida 50 Index shows that not only are Florida-based firms keeping pace with their counterparts across the country, as a cross-section, they're actually seeing results coming in even better," said Seth Levine, CPA, an accounting lecturer at the School and creator of the index. "The twelve largest companies in the Florida 50 Index have a combined market capitalization of over $300 billion. Investors may do well to keep an eye on this index in the future as they weigh their investment decisions."

Two companies recently joined the index thanks to S&P's recent inclusion of both into their own indices. They are Norwegian Cruise Lines (NYSE: NCLH) and SBA Communications (NasdaqGS: SBAC).

The index is available under ticker symbol UMIAMIFL through the S&P website at www.UMFL50.com. The performance can be monitored in real time on Yahoo Finance.