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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spekulatius who wrote (39600)	10/11/2010 12:41:54 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78750

Insurers are cheap. But insurers pretty much have to be in Buffett's hands or they are destined to be (somewhat) cheap. Classical business is tough: competition is high, the push to write business at any price is difficult to resist and let's not talk about innovative ways to try to diworsify into exotics like AIG did. ;) The float is great only if you invest it at Buffett's returns or with Buffett's acumen. Most of the insurers don't. In current situation, they are trapped. If they invest the float into bonds now, they may see almost zero earnings now and losses when bonds turn. If they chase yield, they may lose (as many of them did in 2008) if junk market crashes. Very few of them have acumen to invest well in stocks. Some of them get lucky on the big calls like FRFHF, but then you wonder if they gonna continue being lucky. Yeah, companies like FMR look very cheap. But operationally, I see pain. The only consolation is that capital is cheap and plenty so catalyst for acquisitions like AMPH's buyout are plenty too. Caveat: I am not an insurance company expert at all. I still don't know if there is a good way to decide what to buy in this sector apart from good-management/faith investing. Some of the past numbers as well as book value gives some indications, but it's not clear how much they can be relied no.

To: Spekulatius who wrote (39600)	10/25/2010 3:34:48 PM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78750

I'll take a chance for very few share add to life reinsurer, RGA, now, in advance of tonight's earnings release. finance.yahoo.com

To: Spekulatius who wrote (39600)	10/29/2010 10:04:53 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78750

One of my holdings (FRFHF) is buying another of my holdings (FMR): finance.yahoo.com Well, I just wish I bought more of FMR, but over 50% gain in couple of weeks is good in any case. Will buy more/continue to hold FRFHF.