By Carlos Pallordet

LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) - (The Insurer) - The North American insurance composite, compiled by investment banks Stonybrook Capital and Weild & Co, last week trailed all broad market indices, which surged on news of the end of the “Twelve Day War” between Israel and Iran, without retaliation by Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthi.

The S&P 500 index climbed 3.4% for the week, hitting a new record close since February.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 was up 4.2% while the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average rose 3.8%.

Meanwhile, the small cap Russell 2000 benchmark increased 3.0%.

Stonybrook-Weild highlighted the positive effect on markets from the U.S. military operation that delivered 14 “Bunker Busters” into three of Iran’s declared nuclear facilities, which was followed by the cease of hostilities.

“Maybe markets want to see an end to Iranian nuclear ambitions and proxy wars once and for all, and are signaling that U.S. involvement was long overdue,” the investment banks said.

Stonybrook-Weild also noted positive news on the economic front last week, with the core Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation rising only slightly above expectations at 2.7% year over year, personal income falling 0.4% and personal spending dropping 0.1%. The banks suggested all this signaled consumer weakness.

“As a result, traders ramped up interest rate-cut expectations. The market-implied chance of three or more quarter-point interest rate cuts surged to 56% from only 31% the week prior,” they noted.

“This sustained the equity rally, causing bond yields to fall further and the dollar to slacken,” they explained.

In the North American insurance composite, advancers led decliners by 81 to 31, with 10 of the 12 groups advancing in the week.

The two best-performing groups were title insurers, up 3.8%, and life, annuity and accident insurers, up 3.7%.

The two worst-performing groups were coastal insurers, down 2.7%, and standard commercial insurers, down 0.1%.

Among the latter, The Hartford had the largest fall, with shares down 1.1% for the week.

Travelers, the largest company in the cohort by market capitalization, lost 0.6%.

The Hanover Insurance Group and United Fire Group were also among the fallers of the week.

At the other end of the spectrum, CNA Financial had its shares rise 2.7% for the week, followed by Old Republic, with shares up 2.2%.

The group of reinsurers eked out a gain of 0.1% on average.

Shares in leader Everest Group slid 0.2%, while RenaissanceRe lost 1.3%.

Reinsurance Group of America, the second-largest company in the cohort by market capitalization, was up 0.9%

SiriusPoint had the largest increase in the cohort, with shares up 5.7%.

The group of specialty commercial insurers was up 0.7% on average.

Intact Financial and Fairfax, the first and second-largest companies in the cohort by market capitalization, rose 2.9% and 1.1%, respectively.

Arch Capital eked out a 0.2% gain while Markel rose 1.3%.

In contrast, WR Berkley lost 2.0% in the week.

Meanwhile, the group of global brokers ended the week flat.

Leader Marsh McLennan added 0.4%, while Arthur J Gallagher and Aon lost 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively.

WTW was the outstanding performer in the cohort, with shares up 1.8%.

The Stonybrook–Weild North American Insurance composite is up 6.3% 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.