Stockwatch

The week's winners:
Culver up 25.8%
St Paul up 22.3%

The week's losers:
Royal & SunAlliance down 11.3%
Allianz down 8.2%

What with continuing havoc on the markets and a difficult results season for many insurers, stock values were bouncing around all over the place this week.

On Tuesday afternoon, AXA was up more than 10%, while Zurich Financial Services was down 17.7%.

The fall, after ZFS had been gaining ground, put the company's London listing at £57.50 - not far above its 52-week low.

This column owes ZFS an apology - a misplaced decimal point last month decimated the stock price when it was above £70 - but the problem also illustrates just how far the share has fallen in recent weeks.

Aviva's reward for its generally positive group results was a spurt of reasonable growth on its value, with gains of 8% and 9% at the end of last week.

Continued stories about Royal & SunAlliance took their toll, sending its stock down 11.3% on the week.

Reports that it had been sounding out institutional investors for an emergency cash call simply fuelled worries that it is running out of money.

Even watching the stock fall 14% in a day failed to prompt the company into making a comment.

There was respite earlier this week when R&SA announced the completion of the deal to sell its Isle of Man operation, started in June, and saw the share start climbing again. But the real test will come late at the end of this week as investors digest Thursday's interim results.

R&SA chief executive Bob Mendelsohn is expected to put off reviewing his capital needs until later this year.

Elsewhere, more gloomy news about pension funds vividly illustrates the devastation that low equity prices are wreaking on investment portfolios.

Pension specialists Lane Clark & Peacock reckon funds are running £25bn short of what they need to pay out.

The sum is based on valuations using the controversial pension rule FRS17, which will bring in a new way of calculating the value of the investments held in pension funds.