Stockwatch

The week's winners
Zurich Financial Services
up 16%
Windsor up 9%
Hardy up 7.6%

The week's losers
Royal & SunAlliance down 10%
Wellington Underwriting down 9.2%

Have the gales at the weekend inspired some kite-flying among City and insurance speculators?

Market talk this week centred on the ubiquitous proposed buyer of poor old Royal & Sunalliance. Swiss giant Winterthur is allegedly interested in gobbling up the business, breaking up the remaining life business and commercial and personal lines to feed Churchill and Prudential.

A senior source said: "Historically Winterthur has always been interested in R&SA for its third party administration work in the life book. The rest of the personal and commercial could easily fit Churchill."

But others think this is just idle speculation - a "wild bid to stir up the shareprice after a fallow week", one analyst said.

Investors in Aviva have been waking up to the realisation that they have effectively paid for the company's growth plans through their acceptance of a 40% dividend cut this year.

The cut, together with the £640m made from selling off the group's Australasian non-life businesses, can be ploughed into hard markets at home without the need to tap those same shareholders with a rights issue.

Growth in new life and pension sales sent the stock up 6.6% to 484.5p last Thursday. It held its own the next day and put on another 7.7% (37p) in early trading on Monday.

Elsewhere, there was a question mark left over Sirius International's stability after its parent, Swiss group ABB, issued an earnings warning.

Insurance does not fit with ABB's core activities and speculation grew that Sirius could be sold off.