By Carlos Pallordet

May 19 - The North American insurance composite, compiled by investment banks Stonybrook Capital and Weild & Co., increased 1.4% last week as all broad market indices surged, which reversed a 1.3% loss in the previous week.

The S&P 500 rose 5.3%, its highest weekly record since April’s tariff-reprieve driven rally.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 3.4%, bringing it back into positive territory for the year-to-date, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 surged 6.8%.

Meanwhile, the small cap Russell 2000 index climbed 4.5%, although still trading down 5.2% on a year-to-date basis.

Stonybrook-Weild highlighted how a surprise temporary US-China agreement to ease tariffs for 90 days had driven investor confidence to snap back, with Big-tech stocks leading the gains for the week.

“Later in the week, Treasury yields dropped (although with the 10-year yield still up 6 basis points on the week) after an unexpected decline in the Producer Price Index and disappointing consumer confidence report,” Stonybrook-Capital said.

“Credit spreads shared in the business optimism and ended the week down. Gold prices dropped sharply on the inflation news,” they added.

In the North American insurance composite, advancers led decliners by 95 to 16, with 11 of the 12 groups advancing in the week.

The two best-performing groups were other broker and distributors, up 4.2%, and life, annuity and accident insurers, up 3.5%.

Global brokers also had a relatively good performance in the week, with shares across the group rising 1.7% on average.

Aon saw the largest increase, with shares adding 2.1% in the week, after sliding 0.5% in the previous week.

Marsh McLennan was up 2.0% for the week.

Meanwhile, Arthur J Gallagher climbed 1.2%, adding to a gain of 2.1% in the previous week.

Among P&C carriers, micro cap insurers saw the largest rise, followed by standard commercial insurers, which added 1.8%.

The Hartford was the best performer in the latter group, with shares rising 2.8%.

Cincinnati Financial climbed 2.1% while leader Travelers rose 1.4%.

At the other end of the spectrum, coastal insurers was the worst performing group in the composite, down 1.5%.

Heritage Insurance led the losses with a 6.0% fall in the week.

Shares in HCI Group, the largest constituent in the cohort by market capitalization, slid 0.4%.

Meanwhile, American Integrity Insurance, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on May 8 and is still under its greenshoe option period, experienced a 4.8% fall in the week.

Reinsurers were the second worst performing group in the composite, eking out a 0.1% gain in the week.

Shares in Everest Group, the largest company in the cohort by market capitalization, flatlined in the week, while RenaissanceRe lost 2.3%.

In contrast, Reinsurance Group of America rose 2.1%.

Conduit Holdings saw the most significant gain in the cohort, with shares climbing 4.5% and adding to a 2.6% gain in the previous week.

The Stonybrook–Weild North American Insurance composite is up 9.7% on a year-to-date basis.

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