I invest in a lot of insurance companies.? It is the industry I know best.? When I worked for a hedge fund as an insurance analyst, they called me the weatherman.? I subscribed to a wide variety of services on hurricanes, but I eventually concluded that the forecasts of major hurricane analysts have a bias, and the best thing to do is to look at the error versus the forecasts, because when the error goes to the left, it tends to go further to the left, and vice-versa for the right.? In this case, the storm Irene is rightward biased versus the forecasts.

That’s why I said this two days ago.? It’s easy to panic over hurricanes, but harder to analyze the situation and suggest that the estimate are wrong.

At worst, I think Hurricane Irene will clip the easternmost point of North Carolina at worst, and very possibly miss the US entirely.? Little risk to the insurance industry.