Add some insurance to your portfolio

American National Insurance has been hitting new highs almost every day.

By Jim Van Meerten Nov 30, 2009 7:24PM
Find hot stocks © Digital Vision / Getty ImagesThis week I've decided to add American National Insurance (ANAT) to my Wall Street Survivor portfolio. The carrier offers life, health, annuities, property and causality insurance plus mutual funds in its bag of products.

It came into my view when I used BarChart to screen for stocks hitting new highs and trading more than 100,000 shares per day. ANAT hit 16 new highs in the last 20 trading sessions and in three of the last five days. It has had a 36% price appreciation in the last 65 days.

BarChart has 13 technical indicators, and this stock has buy signals on all 13 for a 100% buy rating.

The stock doesn't have a Wall Street following, but there also isn't any bad news on the Internet.

I always try to see how it is rated on other sites and on Wall Street Survivor Mark's checklist has a 5 of 5 Survivor Sentiment and a 5 for 5 technical rating. Over on Motley Fool CAPS members feel the stock will out perform the market 28 to 7 with the All Stars voting 10 to 2.

This stock has what I look for:
  • It's hitting new highs all the time
  • There aren't any brokerage analysts trashing it
  • Other rating sites are favorably rating the stock

Recommendation: I'm adding American National Insurance to my Wall Street Survivor portfolio at around 108 and would hold it until it failed to trade above its 50 day moving average.


I also deleted Korea Electric Power (KEP) and Limited Brands (LTD) from the portfolio for failing to trade above their 50 DMA.

This was the last trading day of the month and four of our eight Wall Street Survivor participants beat the market return of 5.51%.


Anthony Mirhaydari beat us all with a 21.40% return and I came in second with a November return of 8.33%.


Disclosure: I do not hold positions in any of the stocks in my Wall Street Survivor portfolio.


Jim Van Meerten is and investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or e-mail FinancialTides@gmail.com

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