By Carlos Pallordet

Sept 22 - (The Insurer) - The North American insurance composite compiled by Stonybrook Capital and Weild & Co fell 0.9% last week, underperforming all major indexes.

The S&P 500 index rose 1.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.0%.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq-100 and the small-cap Russell 2000 both increased by 2.2%.

Stonybrook-Weild said that while the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 25 basis point interest rate cut was widely anticipated, it still managed to propel equity markets to record highs – driven in large part by strong gains among the big seven tech stocks.

“The Fed’s updated dot charts are predicting another two 25 bp cuts at the October and December meetings, and traders agree. Still, the Fed Open Markets Committee members must be gritting their teeth with trepidation given the confluence of inflation-stoking variables, but only one major offset (artificial intelligence),” they said.

The investment banks said that persistent inflation is being driven by factors such as tariffs, ongoing fiscal deficits both domestically and abroad, and de-dollarisation efforts by some countries, while AI – though helping curb inflation through productivity gains – also contributes to workforce reductions as companies seek to fund growing AI budgets.

“Note that both the transportation and utility indices were both down in what was otherwise a 'sea of green' for stocks: transportation index declines can be a leading indicator of slower business activity and elevated unemployment,” they added.

In the North American insurance composite, decliners led advancers by 62 to 49, with 10 of the 12 industry groups retreating in the week.

The two worst-performing groups were reinsurers, down 3.1%, and insurance service providers, down 2.7%.

Among the former, shares in leader Everest Group dropped 4.0% while RenaissanceRe was down 1.8%.

SiriusPoint experienced the largest fall in the week, with its shares down 7.1%.

In contrast, Conduit Holdings and Greenlight Capital – the two smallest players in the cohort by market capitalisation – rose by 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.

Shares in the group of standard commercial insurers were down 1.2% on average.

Shares in CNA Financial led the losses with a fall of 4.2%.

Leader Travelers lost 0.7% while The Hartford – the second-largest company in the cohort by market capitalisation – fell 1.2%.

Hanover Insurance fell 3.1% while Selective Insurance traded down 2.0%

The group of specialty commercial insurers was down 1.0% for the week.

Shares in Fairfax – the largest company in the cohort by market capitalisation – increased by 1.7%.

Trupanion recorded the largest gain in the group with its shares rising 3.9%, followed by Skyward Specialty, up 2.8%.

At the other end of the spectrum, Arch Capital fell 4.2% while Axis lost 3.8%.

Intact Financial – the second-largest company in the cohort by market capitalisation – was down 1.7%

Meanwhile, global brokers were among the worst-performing groups in the North American insurance composite.

The peer group fell 2.4% on average.

Shares in Aon led the losses with a drop of 5.5%, followed by Marsh McLennan with a 3.0% loss.

WTW slid 0.6% while Arthur J Gallagher added 0.8%.

The two best-performing groups in the composite were coastal insurers, up 3.1%, and micro cap insurers, up 2.9%.

The Stonybrook-Weild North American Insurance composite is up 5.1% year-to-date.

In this article, we have included a selection of industry comp tables published in full by Stonybrook and Weild & Co in their weekly update.