Saturday, August 7, 2010

Marsh & McLennan - It Should Get Better From Here

There is a lot of money at stake when you try to figure out whether a company is just in a temporary rut or on a greased slide down the mountainside. Now I really do not think that any serious investors believe that insurance broker and risk consultant Marsh & McLennan (NYSE:MMC) is in any danger of sliding into irrelevance, but the stock price today does not seem to build in much of a recovery in the future. 

The Quarter That Was
MMC's results reflect a simple, ugly reality - the commercial non-life insurance business is pretty lousy right now. Whether you look at Travelers (NYSE:TRV), Arch Capital (Nasdaq:ACGL), Allstate (NYSE:ALL) or pretty much any other player in property/casualty and reinsurance, you see the same theme - weak premiums due to a combination of low demand and ready supply. (For a quick refresher, check out Intro To Property And Casualty Insurance.)
 
For the complete piece:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/Marsh--McLennan---It-Should-Get-Better-From-Here-MMC-TRV-ACGL-ALL-WSH.-BRO-AJG0806.aspx

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