If this year's annual Atlanta Journal-Constitution Georgia 100 list were based on size alone, it would be the Georgia 37.

That's how many companies in this year's Georgia 100 have a market value (share price times shares outstanding) of better than $1 billion.

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That's deemed the dividing line between "big" and "small" companies by some Wall Street researchers. It means about two-thirds of the Georgia 100 is made up of small companies.

But that's good news for shareholders of these companies, since Georgia-based stocks as a group outperformed the stock market last year.

The Bloomberg News index of all Georgia-based stocks advanced 17.6 percent in 2004, compared with about 9 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index and 8.6 percent for the technology-weighted Nasdaq composite index.

The Russell 2000 list of smaller stocks also advanced 17 percent in 2004.

According to Ibbotson Associates, a Chicago market research group, small-company stocks have beaten the big caps every year since 1999, including down years when small stock prices declined less than big caps.

So far in 2005, however, the Georgia index has underperformed the market, falling 2.2 percent compared with just 0.3 percent for the S&P 500.

But that was due to a big first-quarter slide, when the Georgia index fell 4.7 percent, vs. a drop of 2.6 percent for the S&P 500.

The second-quarter picture has been much better, with the Georgia index up 2.6 percent since March 31, compared with 2.3 percent for the S&P 500.

In short, Georgia is a small-stock state in terms of its universe of publicly traded companies, even though it is home to some of the world's corporate giants — Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS, Delta Air Lines and the like.

And despite decades of effort at state and local levels to develop high-tech industry — both info- and bio- — the Georgia companies as a group have an "old economy" look about them.

Financial industry prominent

Year in and year out, for example, the biggest single group of public companies on Georgia 100 lists is community banks — typically one of every four.

Add insurance and financial services to that sector, and finance as an industry group jumps to roughly one-third of the total.

The next-biggest segment — almost 19 percent — is made up of companies that manufacture something, whether garments (Carter's, Oxford Industries), household consumer products (Spectrum Brands, Georgia-Pacific) or industrial goods and machinery (Roper Industries, AGCO).

Technology has been a casualty of economic and market conditions during the past half-dozen years, which has affected Georgia's corporate profile.

Still, in the form of "information technology," which includes computers and software, this is the third-biggest segment of public companies at almost 14 percent of the total.

The tech share was bigger in 2000, at the end of a decade-long economic boom, when the Georgia 100 list displayed a noticeable shift toward information technology and telecommunications — core elements of the "new economy."

There had been a marked increase in the number of software and software service companies in Georgia at the turn of the millennium — 15, in fact, compared with just four on the first Georgia 100 list, in 1994.

Health care a growing sector

Another growth industry reflected in public companies has been health care, at 12 percent of the total. The names tell the story: Matria Healthcare, First Horizon Pharmaceutical, AtheroGenics, Serologicals.

A significant feature of Georgia's public companies is that many of the corporate names are mostly headquarters operations, with production facilities elsewhere.

The usual explanation for this is Atlanta's position as an air and transportation hub, which makes it possible to do business from here as well as from any other major U.S. city — and the weather's not bad.

Indeed, with 14 Fortune 500 companies calling Atlanta home, the city ranks third, behind New York (43) and Houston (20), on this year's list, and ahead of Chicago (10).

Given this headquarters location factor, the profile of public companies largely reflects the state's overall employment profile.

Government at all levels, including national defense, is the biggest employer in the state at 16.7 percent of total jobs, the Labor Department reports.

Among nongovernment sectors, professional and business services is the biggest at 13.3 percent as of March, followed by 11.3 percent in manufacturing, 11.1 percent in retail trade, 10.6 percent in health and education services, and 9.2 percent in the burgeoning leisure and hospitality industry.

"Most of the improvements experienced by the national economy have trickled down to Georgia," says Rajeev Dha-wan, director of the Georgia State University Economic Forecasting Center. "For example, Georgia's construction sector has benefited from low interest rates, and the low dollar has helped Georgia's exports."

This shows up clearly in the number of Georgia 100 companies engaged in some phase of housing or construction: Beazer Homes USA and Aaron Rents are in the Top 10, and below that are Home Depot, Cousins Properties, Post Properties, Mohawk Industries and Interface.

"However," adds Dhawan, "tempering the good news are the uncertainties."

He cites troubles in the telecom sector, Delta Air Lines' bankruptcy threat and a continued decline in manufacturing.

Dhawan expects slower U.S. economic growth this year and next, which will affect profit growth and thus share prices.

But he also regards rising interest rates, high oil prices and rising trade deficits as worrisome, but not recession-causing, trends. "While these signs would normally be cause for concern, the nation's economy is similar to a supertanker, which has the ability to survive these types of squalls."