Five Stocks Shine in Dreary Year

If someone had said at the start of the year that a craft store, a fax-machine vendor and a laundry-service provider would see their shares skyrocket, you'd have laughed. All the way to the bank, that is.

Angelica(AGL Quote) and Imagistics(IGI Quote) may not be household names, and JoAnn Stores (JASA Quote) isn't the kind of company you'd typically associate with strong growth, but all three stocks posted dramatic gains in 2002 while the S&P 500 fell almost 21%.

Somewhat less obscure but no less impressive are Halliburton(HAL Quote) and Providian Financial(PVN Quote), both of which defied analysts' expectations by climbing more than 50% this year. ...