By Carlos Pallordet

July 21 - (The Insurer) - The North American insurance index compiled by investment banks Stonybrook Capital and Weild & Co rose just 0.3% last week despite gains across 10 of the 12 groups in the composite.

The S&P 500 benchmark added 0.6% in the week, closing 26% above its April 8 low.

The Nasdaq-100 index rose 1.3% driven by better-than-expected earnings for tech stocks, also setting a new high.

Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 added 0.23% in the week to Friday.

In contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 0.07% in the week.

Stonybrook Capital and Weild & Co noted that consumer price inflation was slightly higher than expected at 2.7%. However, this negative surprise was offset by news that the producer price index – the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge – rose only 2.3%, beating the 2.5% forecast.

“At the same time, retail sales surpassed expectations as the consumer economy continues to rumble along, and the U.S. Treasury benefited almost $27 billion in higher tariff revenues in June,” Stonybrook-Weild said.

“Looking ahead to the August 1 tariff deadline, the market seems increasingly conditioned to tariff talk: unless there is a material negative surprise in the rate of inflation, we suspect that any more shocks will be met with a sigh,” they added.

In the North American insurance composite, advancers led the decliners by 87 to 23.

The two best-performing groups were standard commercial insurers, up 2.8%, and micro cap insurers, up 2.3%.

Among the former, sector bellwether and cohort leader Travelers led the gains with a 4.5% rise in its share price, after the company reported a 9.9 percent point improvement in its quarterly combined ratio to 90.3%.

Selective registered the second largest rise in the group, with its shares climbing 3.8% in the week.

Cincinnati Financial rose 2.3% while shares in The Hartford increased 1.6%.

Micro cap insurers and title insurers were the next best-performing groups, adding 2.3% and 1.6%, respectively, followed by personal lines insurers, up 0.9% on average.

At the other end of the spectrum, the only two groups in the composite to end in negative territory were reinsurers, down 0.5%, and global P&C insurers, down 0.4%.

Among the former, leader Everest Group recorded the largest fall, losing 1.9%.

Greenlight Capital Re fell 1.5% in the week, while RenaissanceRe slid 0.6%.

In contrast, Conduit Holdings rose 5.8% and SiriusPoint added 3.3%.

Chubb was the largest faller among global P&C insurers, with its shares down 1.4%.

AIG and Berkshire Hathaway ended the week down 0.7% and 0.3%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the group of global brokers ended the week up 0.3% on average.

Shares in Arthur J Gallagher rose 0.5% while both Marsh McLennan and WTW added 0.3%.

Aon eked out a gain of 0.1%.

Marsh McLennan on Thursday reported quarterly adjusted earnings per share of $2.72, up 11% year on year and ahead of analysts’ consensus. Its underlying revenue rose 4%.

The Stonybrook-Weild North American Insurance composite is up 3.9% 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.