The week's winners
Cox up by 7.5%
Alea up by 6.7%
The week's winners Cox up by 7.5%Alea up by 6.7%
The week's losersRJ Kiln down by 6%Jardine Lloyd Thompson down by 5.5%The FTSE UK Markets Review paints a very dismal picture indeed. For the month of June it revealed the insurance industry as one of the worst performing sectors.The sector performance data shows that the insurance industry produced a total return well below the 5% mark. Insurers only outshone the pharmaceuticals companies, banks and the electrical sector. Credit Agricole insurance analyst Barrie Cornes said: "What drives the insurance sector is essentially Royal & SunAlliance. If it has a bad month it drags the whole industry with it. Of course it also doesn't help that the Lloyd's market has underperformed as well."Perhaps plans to boost its performance were behind R&SA's decision to add Merrill Lynch as a strategic financial adviser and joint broker this week. But R&SA's existing adviser Cazenove needn't worry; the company said it had no plans to dump the Queen's stockbroker. In contrast, one company feeling bullish about its performance is Legal & General, which this week boasted that it expects business for the second quarter to be well above market expectations as consumer confidence returns. The insurer said new business volumes were up by more than 20% for the second quarter, compared to both the first and second quarters of 2003. In turn, the market has reacted favourably toward L&G, with its share price enjoying a 5.6% leap. Meanwhile, JLT has still not recovered from last week's downgrade by UBS from 'neutral' to 'reduce'. Its shares fell an additional 5.5% this week, which follows its 10% nose-dive a week ago.
