The AIG $12 Call (AIG)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 25, 11:37PM EDT · Published Nov 30, 9:50AM EST

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American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is under far less pressure right at the open than many might have expected. While it settled some of its Hank Greenberg issues last week, the stock was given a fairly ugly analyst call this morning. Sanford Bernstein lowered its under-market price target of an already-ugly $20 down to $12 in a research note. The official rating was ‘reiterated as Underperform’ in this call.

The call notes additional delinquencies in loss reserves worth approximately $11 billion and that may bring more uncertainty for common holders and the US Government’s investment. One issue mitigating some of the losses or risks this morning is wire reports that the company may soon have a bid for its aviation units.

AIG is actually holding up better than you might expect on such an ugly analyst outlook. AIG was down roughly 4% on Friday and was trading down another 3.5% earlier this morning before the open. After 15 minutes since the market open, AIG is down 3% at $32.30, but this was briefly at $33.00 after the open.

Jon C. Ogg
November 30, 2009

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.