Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of insurance holding company CNO Financial (NYSE: CNO) surged more than 12% in early trading today after reporting fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street estimates.

So what: Revenue rose 2% to $1.08 billion. Adjusted profit also rose 2%, to $0.18 per share. Analysts were expecting $993.176 million and $0.16 a share, respectively.

Now what: Insurance results are almost never smooth, but CNO helps itself by diversifying. Partners include Coventry Health Care (NYSE: CVH) for prescription drugs and Humana (NYSE: HUM) for Medicare programs. Investors don't seem to care yet. The stock trades for a relatively microscopic 0.39 price-to-sales ratio and 13 times earnings. Both figures are well below industry averages, according to data at Yahoo! Finance.

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