X-Message-Number: 11180
From: 
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:15:42 EST
Subject: "Nothing certain but....?"

Service Corp. Intl. is the world's largest operator of funeral homes
(thousands of them) and cemeteries (hundreds of them). Today (Jan. 26) its
stock fell 15-5/16 or about 44% in one day, from 34-7/16 to 19-1/8

According to Reuters, "Service Corp. finds funeral business deadly."
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HOUSTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Increased life expectancy is killing one of the
world's leading funeral companies on Wall Street. 

Service Corp. International <<A HREF="aol://4785:SRV">SRV.N</A>> Tuesday
blamed lower mortality rates for expectations that fourth quarter and year-end
earnings would fall considerably below analysts' estimates. 

"Declining death rates pose a challenge for the industry," said Service
Corp.'s President and Chief Operating Officer William Heiligbrodt. [More.]
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Well, obviously mortality statistics aren't going to change enough in one
quarter to make such a difference. But certainly the trend is there. Should
the investor short funeral and cemetery companies and buy shares of life
insurance companies? (Just kidding: the actual determinants of short to medium
term share prices have little or nothing to do with longevity.) 

However, the longer term trend should make those companies consider paying
more attention to cryonics. Cryonics Institute has a member in Texas who is a
long-time friend of Service Corp. chairman and CEO Robert Waltrip, and in the
past has tried in vain to interest Waltrip in cryonics, both from a personal
and business standpoint. Maybe now R.W. will realize his inattention has been
a grave mistake. 

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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