Monday, September 11, 2017

FT Alphaville on Irma and Insurance

Some folks have expressed concern over the dark tone of recent posts, what with the locusts and the earthquake, the treatment-resistant superbug coming out of China and the talk of ergot infesting the European food supply.

And famines and of course the hurricanes. So I want to dispel any rumors that may be spreading after this picture of the Monday morning meeting went viral:

https://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/090617superbug.jpg

We do not have any advance warning of some catastrophe the reader hasn't yet heard of.
It's just that someone left something in the refrigerator over the long Labor Day weekend that was only discovered today and....let's just say, if you drop whatever it is on Pyongyang you could take out Kim Jong-Un and the rest of the Nork hierarchy with a kid's drone.

On to some good news. Paul Murphy at FT Alphaville:


Monday, 11th September, 2017
Live markets commentary from FT.com

PM Morning
PM Welcome to Markets Live
PM Comforting news this morning
PM Alex is saved!

*****
PM Anyway, storm damage hasn't extended to the London market
PM Well, not equities
PM Goodness knows what's happening at the LLoyd's end of things
PM Or in the market for cat bonds
BE We're doing a "worst case avoided, rally" thing.
PM Is that what it is
BE At least at the Lloyds end of the market.

Lancashire Holdings Ltd (LRE:LSE): Last: 658.00, up 47 (+7.69%), High: 660.50, Low: 628.00, Volume: 703.12k
Beazley PLC (BEZ:LSE): Last: 477.90, up 26.9 (+5.96%), High: 480.90, Low: 460.00, Volume: 1.57m
BE This is post Irma taking a late swerve west
BE Which has pulled back the insured losses estimate to between $20bn and $65bn
PM That's quite a spread, nevertheless
BE Yeah, it's all probabilities. RMS puts that chances of losses above $60bn at 10%, which isn't all that comforting for people who remember other recent 10% probabilities....

...MUCH MORE, including insurance industry analyst commentary

Again, nothing to worry about, either with recent events or morbid humor about same. 

I see I forgot about the coronal mass ejection.
And the asteroid that's due in a few weeks.
But other than that we're good.