By Thomas K. Meakin
NU Stock Analyst
The Christmas season, the season to be jolly, produced an investor-pleasing Santa Claus rally in insurance stocks. Even better, it was a year-end surge that enabled insurance and financial services issues to outperform the general market in December.
Check the monthly statistics. The 117 stocks followed advanced almost 5%. However, in the general market, the DJIA moved up only 1.73%, the S&P 500 edged ahead 0.76%, and the NASDAQ Composite managed to gain 1.03%.
There were 84 advances and 33 declines, which works out to a 2.5 /1.0 win/lose ratio. There were 18 double-digit advances. All eight industry sectors moved up.
The Reinsurers were statistically the best performers after logging a 6.79% gain.
The Life & Health contingent stood out with a 6.1% advance. There were 24 winners and only 4 losers, which generated a not often seen win/lose ratio of 6/1.