Saturday everybody was on April fools’ alert! Maybe you became the victim of a (practical) joke or ‘Gotcha’ prank. Hope at least it was a really funny one. Investors did not start the past trading week smiling though as the failed US Healthcare reform wasn’t good for the health of equity portfolios of investors (as they started doubting Trump’s capacity to put through economic reform). Elsewhere the 23% share price drop on Thursday from the sports retailer Lululemon (famous for its yoga pants and clothes) got quite a bit of attention. Lululemon shareholders probably needed an extra yoga session this trading week but for me it was also a sign that not a lot of major things were going on. So all and all it was a relatively quiet trading week. According to ING US markets had their calmest quarter since 1965 based on the (tiny) daily percentage changes. Ageas’s shares managed to gain 1.5% though while the Euro Stoxx 50 and the Stoxx Insurance Index respectively gained 1.6% & 0.5%.

On Wednesday UK Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50, officially starting a two-year exit process from the EU. The day after, Lloyd’s announced it will open an office in Brussels, which attracted quite some attention (especially in Belgium.) Lloyd's, which makes about 15% of its inflows in the EU, will have its Brussels office "ready to write business" as from the first of January 2019. Not sure if everybody fully understood what Lloyd’s actually is, but this is how I understood it: Lloyd’s is not really an insurance company but more a market place where independent insurance underwriters join together in syndicates (that price and underwrite risk) to sell insurance, mainly through brokers, under the Lloyd’s brand name umbrella. Lloyd’s is also not to be confused with the Lloyds banking group which is listed on the London stock exchange. Lloyd’s is an important specialist insurance market that is particularly strong in reinsurance and specialist property and casualty business, marine, energy, motor, aviation and many other types of risk. Lloyd’s also underwrites very unusual types of contracts such as kidnap and ransom, fine art, satellites, … The general public will also know Lloyd's from the sometimes unusual policies: the vocal cords of Celine Dion or Bruce Springsteen, … the leg of Michael Flatley’s (famous for the Irish dance show Riverdance) was insured for £25 million (the policy was only in effect when he was touring but forbade him from dancing off stage). You name it Lloyd’s can price it. I hope reading this made you smile, but on a more serious note in 2016 Lloyd’s wrote GBP 29.9 billion worth of business and made GBP 2.1 profit before tax. That are some serious numbers and definitely not an April fools’ joke.