Things aren’t always what they seem. The French even have a great word for that ‘Trompe-l'oeil’(or ‘deceive the eye’ freely translated into English). Trompe-l'oeil basically is an art technique that is creating an optical illusion and gives the impression that the painted object exists in three dimension.

At first sight Ageas’s share price has lost -3.7% over the trading week but this in a way was also an illusion or a ‘Trompe-l'oeil’. Ageas also paid a dividend, corresponding to a gross dividend yield of 5.6% based on Friday’s closing price (EUR 37.66), and one of course has to look at the total picture. Ageas’s shares went ex-dividend right on Monday and shareholders received EUR 2.1 gross cash dividend on their account on Wednesday.

So basically Ageas’s total performance was + 1.9% instead of -3.7%. So we actually had a pretty good week contrary to what you would have expected at first sight. Also compared to the overall market Ageas did pretty well as the Euro Stoxx 50 index has gained 0.9% over the week.