BSX

The Royal Gazette/Bermuda Stock Exchange yesterday fell eight points to 3,631.30 as the Island's largest telecoms company, KeyTech, saw its share price slip by 3.6 percent.

KeyTech investors traded 347 shares while pushing the trading price down 40 cents to $10.85. KeyTech is the parent company of BTC, Logic Communications and Mobility, as well as having ownership stakes in Bermuda CableVision and QuoVadis.

The total value of shares traded on the BSX yesterday topped $100,000. Butterfield Bank investors traded the highest volume, with 2,096 shares changing hands at the unchanged price of $43.50.

While Butterfield's volume of trading outstripped the rest of the BSX's activity yesterday (a third company, Belco Holdings Ltd. saw investors buy and sell 100 shares at the unchanged price of $41), only KeyTech shares saw a price fluctuation, and impacted the BSX Index.

In international markets, as multi-million dollar estimates for claims from the Hurricane Katrina and flooding damage to New Orleans and the American Gulf Coast began to trickle in from Bermuda's insurance and reinsurance companies, investors were generally bearish on the sector.

RenaissanceRe, a significant seller of property-catastrophe reinsurance policies already under the weight of large catastrophe losses from last year as well as regulatory woes based on a finite risk transaction it unwound, saw its share price slip 3.08 percent to a 52-week low of $42.16.

Partner Re lost 3.21 percent to close at $58.73 as it announced claims from Katrina and other third quarter losses could wipe as much as ten percent off its total shareholders' equity of $3.482 billion, barring other major losses.

PXRE, a reinsurer also active in the property-catastrophe market, has seen its share price drop significantly since Katrina. Yesterday its shares fell a further 2.68 percent to close at $18.29, marginally higher than the company's recently reached 52-week low of $18.22.

ACE Limited shares fell 2.75 percent to $43.85 while XL Capital was down 1.65 percent at $67.30.

Axis Specialty lost 1.64 percent, reducing its share value to $26.47 and IPC Re, a pure property-catastrophe reinsurer, saw investors drop the share price by 1.15 percent to $39.54.

There were Bermuda insurers who saw their share value increase yesterday.

Aspen Insurance Holdings' shares edged up 0.13 percent to $26.23. The company said it expected to sustain losses from Katrina in the region of $150 million, after tax, and after reinsurance and reinstatement premiums, in an after-market statement.

Aspen said the anticipated loss is expected from property reinsurance claims.

Max Re shares also saw a marginal move upwards, by 0.26 percent, to $23.17 while White Mountains Insurance Group shares gained 1.88 percent to close yesterday at $702.50 a share.