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

To: Spekulatius who wrote (48297)	6/8/2012 3:35:49 PM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78622

As far as L is concerned, they are very good at capital allocation but not that good at running their business. I would say that L was good at capital allocation in couple situations - Lorillard mostly, maybe couple others. They probably should have dumped CNA if they cannot right it. They have not done anything in recent couple years that would seem impressive, although buying back shares under NAV may qualify a bit. It still seems that Lorillard was carrying their outperformance, since they have underperformed since they spun it off.

To: Spekulatius who wrote (48297)	6/8/2012 3:42:43 PM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	1 Recommendation Respond to of 78622

The main issue with the low interest rates is with long tail insurance (Life etc.) nor the reinsurance companies, since the latter can (doesn't mean they do) reprice their rates every year or so. I don't think this is as trivial. It's hard to shift from "break even or lose money on underwriting / make it up in investments" model to "make money on underwriting since investments yield zero" model. Some companies can do it, but they are more likely already in equity camp (BRK, FRFHF). Others will do poorly either by doing nothing and getting zero yield or by going to junk/crap in search for yield or by failing to raise prices (or not write business). Even if the pricing in P&C may have improved after 2011 disaster, all the companies are still there, none went bust, so I doubt that there will be good pricing. Everyone will say that they are hedged/covered/prepared, but it's like with E&P oil price hedges - some are and some are not. :)

To: Spekulatius who wrote (48297)	9/14/2012 6:16:37 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78622

ANAT: Timing is everything, apparently. And on some stocks, my timing is way off. Good timing for you if you bought MET in May: finance.yahoo.com Not such good timing if someone llong-term bought and held life insurer ANAT since 2001 (as I did): finance.yahoo.com I've made my first ANAT sales that I can remember today. (Reduced position to a stub holding.) No overall capital gain to speak of after 11 years of sticking with it. Otoh, no real substantial losses either, and I did get the good dividend every year. Just... enough is enough. I'll call it a value trap and move mostly aside. (Stock might do well if controlling shareholder ever retires.) Meanwhile I still have all my shares of same family-controlled stock, NWLI. Not sure what I'll do with this one.