FT Alphaville on Irma and Insurance

Some folks have expressed concern over the dark tone of recent posts, what with the locusts and the earthquake, the treatment-resistant superbug coming out of China and the talk of ergot infesting the European food supply.

And famines and of course the hurricanes. So I want to dispel any rumors that may be spreading after this picture of the Monday morning meeting went viral:

We do not have any advance warning of some catastrophe the reader hasn't yet heard of.
It's just that someone left something in the refrigerator over the long Labor Day weekend that was only discovered today and....let's just say, if you drop whatever it is on Pyongyang you could take out Kim Jong-Un and the rest of the Nork hierarchy with a kid's drone.

On to some good news. Paul Murphy at FT Alphaville:

Monday, 11th September, 2017

Live markets commentary from FT.com

PM Morning

PM Welcome to Markets Live

PM Comforting news this morning

PM Alex is saved!

*****

PM Anyway, storm damage hasn't extended to the London market

PM Well, not equities

PM Goodness knows what's happening at the LLoyd's end of things

PM Or in the market for cat bonds

BE We're doing a "worst case avoided, rally" thing.

PM Is that what it is

BE At least at the Lloyds end of the market.

Lancashire Holdings Ltd (LRE:LSE): Last: 658.00, up 47 (+7.69%), High: 660.50, Low: 628.00, Volume: 703.12k

Beazley PLC (BEZ:LSE): Last: 477.90, up 26.9 (+5.96%), High: 480.90, Low: 460.00, Volume: 1.57m

BE This is post Irma taking a late swerve west

BE Which has pulled back the insured losses estimate to between $20bn and $65bn

PM That's quite a spread, nevertheless

BE Yeah, it's all probabilities. RMS puts that chances of losses above $60bn at 10%, which isn't all that comforting for people who remember other recent 10% probabilities....

...MUCH MORE, including insurance industry analyst commentary

Again, nothing to worry about, either with recent events or morbid humor about same. 

I see I forgot about the coronal mass ejection.
And the asteroid that's due in a few weeks.
But other than that we're good.