You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: We will be discussing results that were released yesterday after the close.
To listen online, please go to the stewart.com website to access the link for this conference call.
Because such statements are based on an expectation of future financial operating results and are not statements of fact, actual results may differ materially from those projected.
Dave will take you through the details of this quarter's financial results in just a minute, but before then, I want to touch on a couple of broader points.
When I began at Stewart almost two years ago, I discussed both the value of our people and brand, as well as the financial strength of our core business.
Stewart clearly was not a typical turnaround story, yet significant changes were necessary.
To compete effectively, we needed to focus on the strategy, founded on a targeted scale, operational improvement, talent upgrades, and acquisitions in core and ancillary business lines.
We realized that our journey to become the premier title services company would not happen overnight, but we began to put in place the pieces necessary to build a resilient long-term success.
As you know, the rebuild has been happening in the face of the pandemic and historic origination volatility [Phonetic].
[Technical Issues] our associates who have worked through these challenges, but our team understands our mission and is aligned to moving fast to achieve our long-term goals while taking care of customers.
I bring this up today as we deliver on record earnings because the improvements in process and investments in talent, scale, services, and technologies, we have made, though not complete, have begun to take hold.
While we are bullish on the real estate over the long term, we are realistic in our assessment that the current market will not last forever.
That said, on a daily basis, we are making decisions and taking actions that will define us through the current market and the next full real estate cycle.
That is what drives us and that is what you're beginning to see in our results.
I'm often asked the question, how do you appropriately quantify the changes that Stewart has made so far in our journey.
With all that we have been working on, it can, at times be challenging to measure all the ways we've improved our operations by being more efficient adding talent, unlocking existing expertise, eliminating redundancies, rescaling operations, and embracing new and improved technology.
But I feel comfortable that the picture that we – that can lie ahead if we execute on our plan is embedded in our performance in the first half of '21.
Our journey continues and we are a quarter closer to our goals.
We continue to see a strong residential real estate market driven by demand, favorable interest rates and an economy getting back to normal.
The commercial real estate market is also benefiting from this improving economy.
Although the economy is improving, there are several watch items including fed and government policy in action, virus variants and anti-vac sentiment, and an improving yet historically high mortgage delinquency and forbearance, which need to play out.
Since these watch items can create operating volatility.
We continue to focus on the areas that will have the most meaningful and durable impact on our long-term operating performance, gaining scale in attractive direct markets, improving scale and geographic focus in our agency and commercial operations, scaling and broadening lender services, and throughout our business, improving service and digital capabilities to provide a seamless end-to-end user experience.
For the second quarter 2021, Stewart reported, net income of $95 million and diluted earnings per share of $3.50 on total operating revenues of $802 million.
The main difference between reported and adjusted net income being the gain on sale of certain buildings.
Compared to last year, total title revenues for the quarter increased $248 million or 50% due to strong performances from our residential agency and commercial operations.
The title segment generated $126 million of pre-tax income, an increase of $71 million from last year's quarter.
As a result of revenue growth and continued management focus.
Pre-tax margin for the segment also improved to 17% compared to 11% from Q2 2020.
With respect to our direct title business, residential revenues increased $76 million or 47% from increased purchase and refinancing transactions.
Residential fee per file for the second quarter was approximately $2,100, a 15% improvement over last year's fee per file due to a higher purchase mix this year.
Domestic commercial revenues improved $30 million or 97% due to increased transaction volume and higher average fee per file, which was $12,600 versus $9,800 for last year's quarter.
Total international revenues increased $29 million or 118%, primarily due to improved volumes in our Canadian operations.
Total open orders increased 8%, while closed orders improved 27% compared to the last year, primarily due to the strong housing market.
Similar to our direct title business, our agency operations generated a solid quarter with revenues of $390 million, which was $113 million or 41% higher than last year.
The average agency remittance rate was settled or at 17.5%.
On title losses, total title loss expense increased $12 million or 56%, primarily as a result of increased title revenues as a percentage of title revenues, title loss expense was 4.5% compared to 4.3% last year.
In regard to operating expenses, which consist of employee and other operating costs, total operating expenses increased primarily due to increased revenue and order activity.
Employee cost as a percent of operating revenues improved to 24% from 27% last year while other operating expenses increased to 17% from 15% last year, primarily due to the pass-through appraisal and service costs in our increased appraisal services businesses, excluding these businesses overall other operating expense ratios would have been 12% for the second quarter 2021.
On other matters, our financial position remains very solid to support our customers, employees, and the real estate market.
Our total cash and investments on the balance sheet are approximately $600 million over regulatory requirements and we have approximately $225 million available on our line of credit facility.
Shareholders' equity attributable to Stewart increased to $1.13 billion with book value per share of approximately $42.
And lastly, net cash provided by operations for the second quarter increased to $103 million compared to $61 million from last year's quarter.
We are grateful for and inspired by our customers and associates, advocates for everyone's improved safety and prosperity, and confident in our supportive real estate markets.

user
q2 adjusted earnings per share $3.50.
q2 revenue rose 58 percent to $802 million.

assistant