As an investor, it doesn't pay to follow the crowd.
In this series, though, we highlight a possible exception -- the collective wisdom of our CAPS community. Read the next section if you're unfamiliar with our methodology. Skip it if you want to go straight to the results.
Why this crowd is different
Jumping into a stock because your rich neighbor did, or because you heard about it from your friend's uncle who used to work on Wall Street, or because CNBC has been talking about it nonstop, is a recipe for disaster.
If there's one thing I've learned as a stock analyst, it's that any stock can be gussied up to sound like a world-beater. If there's a second thing I've learned, it's that being a smart person doesn't make you a good investor.
In the hands of a smart person with good communication skills, the never-were and never-will-be stocks sound like tickets to instant fortune. The ancient Greek philosophers made the distinction between rhetoric and knowledge. The former is convincing; the latter is true.
That's why we factor in track record in our Motley Fool CAPS community. We invite everyone to give stocks an outperform (akin to a "buy" call) or underperform rating (akin to a "sell" call) in CAPS. We then use those opinions to calculate a rating for each stock -- from one to five stars (five being the best). But -- and this is a big distinction -- we give more weight to the opinions of folks whose picks have performed well in the past.
The top 10 insurance underperform calls
With that methodology as prelude, meet the 10 one- and two-star insurance stocks with the most CAPS community member underperform ratings (I used a minimum market capitalization of $100 million, and the proviso that stocks must be listed on a major U.S. exchange). Remember, stocks are rated on a five-star scale by our CAPS community, so one- and two-star stocks are consensus underperforms.
|
Company Name
|
Market Capitalization (in millions)
|
52 Week Price Change %
|
Price-to-Earnings (TTM)
|
CAPS Rating (out of 5)
|
Underperform Picks
|
|
AIG (NYSE: AIG )
|
$4,648
|
-32%
|
NM
|
**
|
650
|
|
MBIA (NYSE: MBI )
|
$1,786
|
37%
|
NM
|
*
|
460
|
|
Ambac Financial (NYSE: ABK )
|
$163
|
-69%
|
0.1
|
*
|
380
|
|
XL Group (NYSE: XL )
|
$6,088
|
3%
|
22.8
|
*
|
230
|
|
MGIC Investment (NYSE: MTG )
|
$1,451
|
-15%
|
NM
|
*
|
228
|
|
PMI Group (NYSE: PMI )
|
$492
|
-14%
|
NM
|
**
|
217
|
|
Radian Group (NYSE: RDN )
|
$839
|
-33%
|
NM
|
**
|
206
|
|
Hartford Financial Services
|
$8,669
|
-19%
|
37.5
|
**
|
128
|
|
Assured Guaranty
|
$2,828
|
-23%
|
3.5
|
**
|
113
|
|
Prudential Financial
|
$23,431
|
-4%
|
5.5
|
**
|
106
|
Source: Motley Fool CAPS. NM= not meaningful.
The last year hasn't been a great one for these insurance stocks. You'll notice lots of 52-week stock price losses, and lots of P/E ratios that aren't meaningful (because of negative earnings). The CAPS community isn't impressed with these 10, but famed investor Bruce Berkowitz thinks there's opportunity in at least two of these stocks.
More CAPS members consider fallen star AIG an underperform than any other insurance stock. Do you think it deserves this lack of love? Make your thoughts known in CAPS by clicking here. Or just go there to do further research on one of these stocks.
You can see the flip side -- the top-rated insurance stocks -- by clicking here.
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