Reputations and tradition are hard to shake. In the Triad, the manufacturing troika of textiles, tobacco and furniture have long defined who we are and what we do. They still do in terms of sheer employment.

But if you're an investor, that's not where you've put your money in recent years. With good reason. A powerful combination of low interest rates and industry consolidations have made the financial services arena the place to watch your money grow -- fast.

Meanwhile, with few exceptions, the Triad's large manufacturers -- the bedrock of the local economy for years -- have grown modestly, if at all.

Illustrating that point is the News & Record's second annual ranking of the Piedmont Triad's Top 50 publicly held companies with a significant employment presence in the region. Although a national airline and a furniture giant head the list, the top half of the Top 50 -- 10 of 25 companies -- are occupied by financial services companies.

In a separate analysis of the Top 20 companies with headquarter operations in the Triad, the same pattern holds true. In that list, seven of the top 10 companies are in financial services.

The names near the top are hardly surprising: NationsBank, First Union, BB&T, Wachovia, Triad Guaranty, American Express and Jefferson-Pilot. The following names are also familiar: Burlington Industries, Cone Mills, Fieldcrest Canon, Guilford Mills, Galey & Lord, LADD Furniture and Bassett Furniture.

The problem is, with stagnant or negative earnings, those textile and furniture giants did not crack the Top 50.

In some ways, the trends show how far the Triad has come in diversification. Even with the corporate mainstays enjoying less than stellar performances in recent years, unemployment across the Triad remains low and the economy continues to expand moderately.

The rankings of publicly held companies were compiled by the News & Record business staff based on two-year analyses of company profitability, sales growth, return to stockholders and total revenue. The criteria tends to favor companies whose stock price has soared since 1995 and whose earnings have grown through acquisitions. In all, 67 public companies were ranked to derive the Top 50.

"Banks, insurance companies and others in financial services are all doing well," said Don Jud, a UNCG economist. "What we're seeing in the Triad is also taking place across the Southeast and the country."

Call it the the Wall Street effect. With America's infatuation with the stock market and mutual funds, money has flowed copiously into companies and funds involved in consumer and commercial lending, tax preparation, tax management, asset management and insurance.

The low interest rates of the past two years have primed this investment surge. Moreover, companies such as NationsBank, First Union, Wachovia and Jefferson-Pilot continue to grow through acquisitions, which oftens makes them a more attractive investment.

The value of each of those companies stock prices jumped more than 70 percent between Jan. 1, 1995 and Dec. 31, 1996. The stock price of Triad Guaranty, ranked No. 6 in the Top 50, rose 238 percent.

"Everyone is much more attuned to the stock market these days," said John Allison, a broker with Smith Barney in Greensboro. "That helps the banks and insurance companies. Also, we've seen a lot of consolidation, and with that you've got earnings in growth and expansion."

While the companies under the financial services umbrella continue to perform nicely, none grabbed the top two spots in the News & Record Top 50. Those honors went to US Airways and Furniture Brands International, both boosted largely by powerful returns on equity.

Some Triad residents may be annoyed by US Airways' No. 1 ranking. In May, the company hit the Triad with a thundering body blow by announcing the elimination 1,300 high-paying jobs in Greensboro and Winston-Salem as a part of system-wide cost-cutting. Many of those jobs will move to Charlotte.

The cutbacks, however, belie the reemergence of a company that hit bottom three years ago, with losses in the billions and a stock price trading at an all-time low of $4.25.

Under new management, US Airways (formerly known as USAir) has experienced back-to-back profitable years, and its stock price -- at $23.37 -- jumped an attention-grabbing 450 percent by the end of 1996.

Furniture Brands International's No. 2 ranking in the Top 50 is due to both its 58 percent revenue growth and also its solid growth in the other two performance-related criteria -- stock price and profitability.

Revenue growth was due almost entirely to the company's purchase of Thomasville Furniture Industries in late 1995. Because Thomasville was almost the same size of Furniture Brands' other two companies, the purchase meant a sales jump of about 50 percent right off the bat.

While the furniture industry is hardly a Wall Street darling, Furniture Brands is one of a few companies that has garnered some respect in investment circles. For one thing, the company takes a different approach to marketing than many furniture companies, spending millions of dollars to promote its already well-known brands.

Also, the company has sheer size uncommon in its industry. It's one of only two furniture makers with sales exceeding $1 billion.

Others in the furniture industry -- most notably LADD Furniture (No. 60) and Bassett Furniture (No. 67) -- have not been so fortunate in recent years, hampered by a combination of poor management, sluggish sales and a slowness in modernizing manufacturing processes. Both LADD and Bassett have installed new management teams recently who have launched efforts to turn the companies around.

Without dramatic change, predicted Wake Forest University economist Gary Shoesmith, many companies in the furniture industry will continue to struggle.

"There are some pretty serious problems in that industry that will be haunting us for the next decade," Shoesmith said. "The furniture industry is years behind in terms of manufacturing, ordering, inventory and delivery. They have an awful long way to go to catch up."

The Triad's best known textile companies continue to struggle as well. "Textiles will not come out near the top of rankings like the News & Record's," said Kay Norwood, a textile industry analyst with Interstate Johnson Lane in Charlotte. "It's a mature industry and its heavily capital intensive."

But despite the low rankings, there are some some bright spots in textiles. Among them: Culp and VF Corp., tied at No. 32, saw solid stock price increases. Also Unifi, which though ranked at No. 62, saw a 30 percent increase in its stock price between 1995 and 1996.

Norwood added that textile companies are often at the mercy of retailers who, in today's saturated and competitive market, demand the lowest possible prices from suppliers. That means manufacturers have to make cuts of their own to preserve profits. After the downsizing of the 1980s and early 1990s, there's little left to cut.

Such problems have plagued Greensboro's biggest textile companies, denim makers Burlington Industries (No. 64) and Cone Mills (No. 61). Guilford Mills (No. 56), however, which has strong niche in fabrics used for the interiors of automobiles, has managed to grow slowly and push its stock price up nearly 26 percent between 1995 and 1996.

Staff writer Scott Andron contributed to this story.