In a year when federal regulators took unprecedented steps to rescue, support, stabilize, nationalize -- whichever euphemism you prefer -- the nation's battered banking industry, regional banks dominated the list of Western Pennsylvania's top performing stocks.

		Top 50 rankings • See the rankings for this year's Top 50 in Business report.

Bank shares accounted for four of the five stocks in The Post-Gazette's Top 50 that managed to generate gains for shareholders last year and accounted for six of the top 10 performances.

WesBanco, the Wheeling, W.Va., bank that received $75 million in assistance under the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, was the best performing stock, registering a 32 percent advance. Still, that's a far cry from the 156 percent gain Calgon Carbon posted to earn the top-performing stock title in last year's Top 50.

Other regional banks whose shares advanced in a risk-averse market were S&T Bancorp (up 28 percent), First Commonwealth Financial of Indiana, Pa. (up 16 percent) and ESB Financial of Ellwood City (up 7 percent).

Shares of PNC Financial Services Group, which received $7.6 billion in TARP assistance related to its acquisition of National City Corp., fell 25 percent last year.

The lone nonbank winner last year was Wabtec, which advanced 15 percent after rising 13 percent in 2007. The Wilmerding-based rail industry provider's earnings jumped 19 percent last year.

Investors in 90 percent of the Top 50 were left licking their wounds at year-end. All but two of the 45 stocks that declined recorded double-digit losses.

The exceptions were WVS Financial, the parent of West View Savings, and Calgon Carbon, a Robinson environmental products and services firm. Each fell 3 percent.

Shares of half of the Top 50 tumbled 40 percent or more last year. Shares of 17 regional stocks plunged 50 percent or more, including five from the previous year's top 10: Consol Energy, Atlas America, Koppers Holdings, U.S. Steel and MSA.

Calgon Carbon was the only repeat performer from the previous year's list of the 10 best-performing stocks and earned the honor of being the region's best-performing stock over the last two years.

Of the other nine members of the 2007 top 10, the "best" performance last year was registered by Ansys. Shares of the Cecil software writer slid 33 percent in 2008.

The worst performing stocks in the Top 50 were paced by Atlas Pipeline Partners (down 86 percent), Nova Chemicals (down 85 percent) and RTI International Metals (down 79 percent).

In 2007, the worst performance came in the form of a 59 percent decline in the share price of HFF, the Downtown real estate services firm. Ten Top 50 members did worse than that last year, including HFF, which fell another 68 percent.