Easter breather

If you celebrated Easter last weekend you probably participated in one (or all) of the following activities: dyeing eggs, gifting Easter baskets and/or embarking on the traditional Easter egg hunt. However you decided to spend your Easter, in any case all major European exchanges & U.S. markets were closed for Good Friday, with most European exchanges also remaining shut on Easter Monday.

The long Easter weekend gave investors a breather after weeks of trade-war talks and central bank action including a 25 basis point interest-rate hike by the US Federal Reserve, which lead to increased volatility on the global equity markets. Last trading week was no different with the technology sector again creating volatility and heavy swings on global & European equity markets resulting in the 3 three major US indexes logging one of their worst quarters in more than two years.

On the Ageas front, last week the Amsterdam Court of Appeal held a 2nd public hearing as part of the procedure to declare the Fortis settlement binding. Remember that on December 12th of last year Ageas and the claimant organisations reached an amended settlement agreement that takes into consideration the main concerns of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal with regard to the initial agreement of March 14th 2016. After the 16 March hearing that focussed on the compensation for the claimant organisations, the Court, at the public hearing held last week, addressed the amended settlement agreement itself. At the end of this hearing the Court stated it will announce its decision regarding the request to declare the settlement binding on Friday 13 July 2018.

In a once again volatile trading week, the Ageas share eventually decreased by 1.18% to EUR 41.96. Over the first quarter of 2018 however the Ageas share increased by 3.1% outperforming both the Euro Stoxx 50 (-4%) & the European SXIP 600 Insurance index (-1.7%).