JLT halts share slide
It was a quiet week for insurance stocks with the market closed for the holiday period. Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) managed to temporarily halt its recent fall and tacked on a little over 1% to take the current price to 345.50p as Insurance Times went to press.
JLT's share price has taken a battering in the first few months of 2006, falling over 30% from its high of 519p in early January.
The move down gathered momentum in March and the price dropped over 20% in two days when the company reported a fall in pre-tax profits and a lacklustre outlook in its trading performance for the year ahead, in its 2005 results.
Last week, the resignation of Dominic Collins, executive chairman of JLT Risk Solutions division, sent the broker's share price plummeting further to just above the five-year low point of 333p that it reached in May 2005, in the aftermath of poor 2004 trading results.
Other insurance stocks consolidated after recent falls. Goshawk continued to hover at 5.25p - just 0.5p above its all-time low of 4.75p.
Royal & SunAlliance added just over a penny to 135.75p. The shares have recently pulled back from a high of 146.50p but the upward trend, which has seen the share price rise from 78p this time last year, seems to be still very much in place. IT
