Pure-play cat bond funds stabilise after 6.5% losses on Hurricane Ian

Pure-play cat bond investment funds may have bottomed out post-Hurricane Ian, with a dollar-denominated cat bond investment fund index up fractionally for the week ending October 21 after three weeks of Ian-driven losses.

The Plenum Investments weekly index for dollar-denominated cat bond funds rose a fractional 0.1% for the week and is now down 6.5% from the YTD high reading on the Friday prior to Ian's Florida landfall.

The broad index reading had avoided decline for nine-weeks prior to the Ian landfall, including a fractional gain in the week to September 23 to a YTD high, just as tropical depression nine became tropical storm Ian.

Subindexes for euro-denominated fund series fared slightly worse for the week and are now down 6.8% from the pre-Ian reading. Swiss franc denominated funds were stable for the week, but are 7.3% below the Pre-Ian high and nearly 7% down YTD.

Sub-indexes for low-risk and high-risk bond groups performed nearly identically across the week and performance has been within 1.7 percentage points since the pre-Ian reading.

Plenum has crafted a series of investment fund total return performance indexes from a group of 15 pure-play cat bond UCITS investment funds. Sub-indexes divvy up results by currency unit class and a classification of risk profile subject to semi-annual review.

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