PG&E stock plummets

Well, what do you expect after last night's tumultuous gas line break and fire? Shares fell more than 8 percent today, wiping out $1.6 billion of the company's market cap. For a utility, that's huge. Actually, the stock had been doing quite well for much of the summer. From an SEC filing:

The Utility maintains liability insurance for damages caused by fire in the approximate amount of $992 million in excess of a $10 million deductible. Depending on the final outcome of the investigation, and if insurance recoveries are unavailable or insufficient to cover the losses, PG&E Corporation's and the Utility's financial condition or results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

One big question is culpability. PG&E's workers hadn't gotten close enough to the blast site on Friday to determine the cause, but residents say they were complaining for several weeks about gas leaks. It's unlikely there will be any long-lasting damage to the stock, though it could be a while before things get sorted out.