Re UVE: First let me disclose that I sold my position today. Selling had nothing to do with potential storms, IBD ratings etc. UVE reminds me of those small brokers that we used to invest in i.e. Kirwin and Paulson, great earnings one quarter and looking dirt cheap and who knows what the next, in other words no predictability of earnings despite the fact that we thought we could predict those earnings. Another similarity is that those brokers' stock prices often went up or down substantially without any news, it was only after the fact that we found out why; the recent very quick rise in UVE without any news from the company and posters here presuming it has something to do with storms, is not particularly reassuring. The difference of course is that at least UVE management doesn't seem to hype the stock and their accounting seems fairly conservative. The factors that lead to this unpredictabilty of earnings are many but storms and the actions of competitors (re-entering or re-pricing the market) seem to be the biggest. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the current quarter's EPS will be good, there will be no storms and UVE's stock price will go up from here, but I don't like to base investment decisions on guesses and certainly at these prices there is more risk in owning UVE than there was two weeks ago in buying it. So I'm out at least for now and wish good luck to current holders.
