The Health Care 250.

In health care, one sector's surge can mean another's stall. So goes the story for companies that make up our first-ever Health Care 250, a ranking of 1998 performance compiled for H&HN by the HealthCare Markets Group. "It's a far cry from the halcyon days of 1995," says John Cumming, the group's managing director, "when health care stocks gained an average of 40 percent."

Fortune 1,000 ranked within industries.

Call this the big picture. Here we take a wider cut at the performance of American industry, sizing up the top 1,000 companies by 12 different measures, including profits, employees, and bottom-line ratios, like return on equity. You'll find enormous differences among industries--and within them. For example, the health care group showed profit growth of 24% but a -23% return to investors. Computer peripherals companies, on the other hand, had zero profit growth but 101% total return. Among peers, check out Compaq's profits, up 66%; Apple's, down 292%.

Medical and health information directory: Vol. 1: Organizations, agencies, and institutions. Vol 2: Publications, libraries, and other information services. Vol. 3: Health services / Medical and health information directory: Vol. 1: Organizations, agencies, and institutions. Vol 2: Publications, libraries, and other information services. Vol. 3: Health services

A guide to more than 49,000 associations, agencies, companies, institutions, research centers, hospitals, clinics, treatment centers, educational programs, publications, audiovisuals, databases, libraries, and information services in clinical medicine, basic bio-medical sciences, and the technological and socio-economic aspects of health care