NEW YORK -- Investors who dismiss the government's Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award as an empty token might want to reconsider.
A new study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Commerce Department unit that manages the Baldrige program, shows stocks in the 11 publicly traded companies that won the award between 1988 and 1993 returned a hypothetical 92 percent, including reinvested dividends.
That's almost three times the 33 percent return investors would have received by investing in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, the conventional benchmark of market performance.
In dollars and cents, $12,000 invested in Baldrige winners, a little each year, would have grown to $23,016 at the end of the period. An equal amount in the S&P; 500 would have risen to $15,911.
The awards recognize parent companies or their divisions that focus on high-quality products and services.