Paul Newsome Quotations

I'm surprised at the speed with which the market has gone up. It's premature and my guess is that rates aren't going to go higher.

We expect it to be a really big loss in the quarter but Allstate hasn't come out with an estimate and its hard to tell how big of a loss it will be, ... That's pretty unusual and it makes me a little nervous that they might post a bigger loss than expected.

People are selling on the good news of the 10-K coming out,

It's been a long time since they've had a year without something exceptional.

The turnaround looks like it's kind of going, but going slowly. It's not a complete, across-the-board turnaround at this point yet. But they made progress in the fourth quarter and the results showed it.

It's a rather bold move. It's an enormous acquisition and it's coming very quickly after a very complicated merger with St. Paul-Travelers. It's not terribly likely because they'll have trouble getting their investor base in line.

I think you have to question the consistency of these one-time items.

If the rating agencies downgrade this across the board ... that could have an impact on the earnings,

Premium revenues were up a lot in the quarter, so that would suggest that they're lowering prices to gain more customers. But medical cost inflation could have accelerated too -- it's not clear which one it is, but both issues would affect the entire industry.

The third quarter is clearly an anomaly. I think to a certain extent Allstate will get a pass this time because everyone is expecting a huge loss.