The US Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday to continue to buy US$45bn of Treasuries and US$40bn of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) per month – and therefore not to taper its asset purchases – was a big surprise to the market and set the market on fire. To give you a sense of the taper party spirit in the US: Priceline.com – the US internet company which is particularly strong in online hotel reservations allowing customers to name their own price (maybe you have already booked a hotel through Booking.com?) – became the first company in the S&P500 56 long history to trade above the $ 1000 share price level.

The general l positive sentiment spilled over into Europe on Thursday & the overall market (the Euro Stoxx 50) ended 0.94% in the green. Particularly striking was the fact that the Insurance sector as a whole did not benefit at all, even to the contrary: the EURO STOXX Insurance Index ended 1.23% in the red which led to an underperformance of the sector of 2.17%.

Unfortunately Ageas’s shares suffered along with the sector and lost 1.65% while other companies like Aegon (-3.65%), ING (-2.58%), Axa (-2.36%) lost some terrain too.

Meanwhile we did not see any rating changes following out Investors Update last week. One analyst even increased his price target from EUR 31.4 to EUR 31.9.  So basically one may consider that the share price reaction on Thursday had a lot to do with the fact that the overall sector had an off day. In addition it is worth noting that the day before, i.e. on Tuesday, Ageas’s shares already rose more than the sector index in anticipation. Let’s look at the numbers: on Wednesday Ageas’s shares outperformed the sector by 0.79% while on Thursday they underperformed by 0.42%. Although over last week Ageas lost 1.14% with the sector relatively flat (+0.09%), Ageas’s shares are up 38.28% since the start of the year!

Earlier in the week the EGM also approved all the proposals submitted by the Board of Directors: 0.2% of our shares outstanding were cancelled and on 13th of December the EUR 1 capital reduction (corresponding to 3.26% yield on Friday’s closing price) is expected to be wired to shareholders’ bank accounts. We also welcome two new board members: Mrs. Lucrezia Reichlin & Mr. Richard Jackson, both of whom received overwhelming approval with   99.75% of the votes in favour.

And if you still have a couple of minutes to spare and if you did not yet see the interview our CEO gave on CNBC on Wednesday morning I can really recommend it. Just click on the following link: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000200363 and sit back and enjoy.