THE FIRST QUARTER of the new year was good for chemical company stock prices, which once again outperformed not only shares of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that C&EN sampled, but also the major stock market indexes such as the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's and NASDAQ indexes. By the end of March, C&EN's index of 25 chemical company stocks had grown 5.2% from the close of 2006, to 248.1 (all C&EN indexes are relative to 1992 = 100). C&EN's index of nine drug companies increased 3.0% to 405.3, while the 13-company biotechnology index fell 1.5% to 558.8. During the same period, the Dow Jones declined 0.9%, the S&P 500 increased 0.2%, and the NASDAQ was up 0.3%. It is somewhat surprising that chemicals held up so well, considering that on Feb. 27 the Dow Jones fell a steep 3.2% from the previous day and the S&P 500 dropped ...