Bernstein Dumps Insurers (ACE, ALL, CB, CNA, TRV, XL, AIG)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Burning_money_picFinancial stocks may have enjoyed sizable bounces from their lows in November and December, but not all analysts are following them up.  The insurrance sector and some of the re-insurance names have been downgraded by Bernstein.  Here are the following calls we have seen from their report:

  • ACE Limited (NYSE: ACE) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform.
  • Allstate (NYSE: ALL) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform.
  • Chubb (NYSE: CB) downgraded to Underperform from Outperform.
  • CNA Financial (NYSE: CNA) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform.
  • Travelers (NYSE: TRV) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform.
  • XL Capital (NYSE: XL) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform.

Perhaps the best call in timing (yes, that is facetious) comes inAmerican International Group (NYSE: AIG), where its shares weredowngraded to Market Perform from Outperform.  Great timing there.

Most of these are so far off of highs that you would wonder why these were even rated as "Outperform" in the first place.

Jon C. Ogg
January 6, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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