By Carlos Pallordet

Feb 10 - (The Insurer) - The North American insurance composite, compiled by investment banks Stonybrook Capital and Weild & Co, rose 1.1 percent last week, outperforming major Wall Street benchmarks which were down as persistent inflation concerns weighed on market sentiment.

The S&P 500 slid 0.2 percent in the week to Friday while the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.5 percent.

The small cap Russell 2000 benchmark lost 0.3 percent.

Only the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 managed to move into positive territory, eking out a marginal 0.1 percent gain following a 1.4 percent fall in the previous week.

“Inflation expectations are increasing,” affirmed Stonybrook-Weild.

“The Michigan consumer survey released Friday showed that respondents expect inflation to rise to 4.3 percent one year from now, and the Dow closed 444 points down as inflation and tariff fears triggered a sell off, and treasury yields rose,” it explained.

“The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston predicted earlier that tariffs will add between 0.5 percent to 1.0 percent to the year-over-year personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index – the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation – potentially pushing inflation above 3 percent by year-end 2025. None of this bodes well for the Fed to lower rates any time soon,” they concluded.

Meanwhile, the investment banks noted that while the unemployment rate dropped to 4.0 percent — beating expectations of 4.1 percent and well below the long-term US average of 5.7 percent — the labour participation rate remains significantly lower than in past periods with similar unemployment levels, such as 1997-2000.

“More working Americans support the market since it cuts the need for entitlements, adds to the tax base and helps with the deficit,” they commented.

In the North American insurance composite, advancers led decliners by 70 to 40, with 10 out of the 12 industry groups advancing in the week.

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Global brokers was the best performing group in the composite, rising 4.5 percent.

Arthur J Gallagher led the group with an impressive 6.8 percent surge for the week, building on its strong performance from the previous week, when it gained 4.3 percent.

Marsh McLennan and Aon were up 4.9 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively.

WTW was the only decliner in the cohort of four intermediaries, shedding 1.1 percent.

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Specialty commercial insurers were the second most dynamic cohort in the composite, averaging a 4.1 percent gain.

Markel and Kinsale Capital topped the gains, with both surging by 10.8 percent. Shares in Skyward Specialty added 9.6 percent, compounding gains of 5.1 percent. Meanwhile, Intact Financial was up 8.4 percent.

Among the fallers in the group, American Financial Group lost 7.3 percent.

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The group of personal lines insurers also delivered a good performance in the week, rising 2.4 percent on average.

Shares in Progressive – the leader in the cohort and largest company among P&C insurers by market capitalization – increased by 3.4 percent.

Insurtech companies were among the most significant risers with Root, Hippo and Lemonade adding 14.9 percent, 11.3 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively.

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At the other end of the spectrum, reinsurers were the worst performing group, with shares down 2.8 percent in the week, compounding falls of 3.4 percent in the previous week.

Everest Group – the largest company in the cohort by market capitalization – was down 2.7 percent.

Meanwhile, Reinsurance Group of America saw the greatest decline with a fall of 8.5 percent.

Shares in RenaissanceRe recovered 3.0 percent in the week after posting a loss of 9.2 percent in the previous period.

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The Stonybrook–Weild North American Insurance composite is up 3.6 percent 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.