Archives for November 2013

TTSE PE: Values hardly dented

November 22, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 22nd November 2013 | The PE ratio chart for Trinidad Stocks showed little change from last week.

Added to the chart is ReadyMix (WI) Ltd. a subsidiary of Trinidad cement. Based on the results to September, the company appears over valued but the company’s results have been turned from a loss in 2012 to a profit this year.

We have updated earnings for a number of companies based on their September results. The chart shows that there are still very good stock values in the Trinidad market with potential for good levels of appreciation.

Our chart of the Top 8 Stocks with potential gains is a good place to start when looking to buy.

Related posts | New additions to Buy Rated stocks

Filed Under: Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: PE Ratios, TTSE

FX: J$ appreciate across majors

November 22, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 22nd November 2013 | The US dollar backed off from crossing the $106 mark as the Jamaica dollar appreciated against all of the currencies in Friday’s trading except for a rise in the buying rate for the US dollar. There was increased liquidity in the Foreign Exchange market which helped push rates down. The majority of rates at the high and low ends retreated as well.

The purchasing of foreign currencies climbed to the equivalent of $43,675,555 or US$9 million more than the amount sold of US$34,529,512 on the final day of the week.

Trading took place in US dollars when dealers bought US$40,458,636 for an increased rates which was up 36 cents to $105.38 and they sold US$32,453,090 with the rated declining 14 cents to $105.83. C$977,622 was purchased with the rate falling 93 cents to $98.53 at the close and C$925,392 was sold as the rate declined by 23 cents $101.11, the British Pound was bought at $168.50 down $1.58, as dealers picked up £891,428 and sold £615,687 at $171.37, down by 77 cents.

Highs & Lows | The US dollar highest buy rate fell by 60 cents to $106.60, while the lowest was unchanged at $85.59. The highest selling rate increased by 27 cents to $109.94 and the lowest gained 10 cents to $102.60.

Rates for the Canadian dollar fell across the board with the high being down 70 cents to $101.30 and the low down 12 cents to $80.22; the high for selling fell 90 cents to $103.65 and the low was off 15 cents to $96.65.

The British Pound suffered declines across the board against the Jamaican dollar with the high for buying losing 99 cents to end at $171.56, the low was off 8 cents to $136.37 while the high for selling was $174.20, down $1.71 and the low shed 45 cents to end at $164.30.

Filed Under: FX Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, FX Market, Trading Activity

JSE: Sagicor X Fund up 10% on IPO price

November 22, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 22nd November 2013 | The Jamaica Stock Market recorded more gains on Friday and recorded two new highs and one new low with Sagicor Real Estate X Fund increasing 10 percent since last week’s listing to close at $5.50. Paramount Trading was the other to hit a new high.

A total of 26 securities traded on Friday amounting to 5,463,219 units valued at $10,046,554 as the prices of 11 stocks increased and 8 declined still positive but a little less so than on Thursday.

The JSE market index gained 297.10 to end at 77,384.08; the all Jamaica index closed at 76,339.89 for a gain of 516.50 and the junior market index closed up to 725.48 with a gain of 6.70 thus continuing the gains from Thursday.

Main Market trades | Cable & Wireless traded 1,808,024 shares to close at firm at 15 cents; Caribbean Cement 27,800 units as it gained 10 cents to close at $2.30; Carreras exchanged 9,518 units as the price moved up 30 cents to close at $36; First Caribbean International Bank delivered 16,553 units to new investors at $90.01, up a cent but the offer closed at $90; Jamaica Broilers Group 671,556 units traded to close at $4.20, down 4 cents; Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded 21,910 units to close down 10 cents at $8; Radio Jamaica 65,392 units at $1.30, down 4 cents; Sagicor Life exchanged 25,850 units at $7.80; Sagicor Real Estate X Fund added 10,989 units while closing at a new high of $5.50, up 30 cents; Scotia Group traded 107,442 shares to close at $17.06 down 44 cents; Seprod surprisingly, gained 50 cents while trading 3,374 units at $12.50.

Jamaica Money Market Brokers 8.75% exchanged 74,677 units at $2.90.

Junior Market | Start up C2W Music that has earned little income since listing in 2012 hit a new all-time low in trading on the stock market on Friday, as 2 million units changed hands, at 74 cents with the price falling by 19 cents. Caribbean Producers traded 92,000 units to close up 15 cents at $2.10; Consolidated Bakeries traded 215,000 shares to close at $1.35 for a loss of 4 cents; General Accident Insurance exchanged 63,915 units to close at $1.60; Lasco Distributors traded 18,300 units as the price moved up 5 cents to close at $1.50; Lasco Financial Services exchanged 20,200 shares to close at $1.03 up 3 cents; Lasco Manufacturing had 201,700 units changing hands at $1.25, down 15 cents; Paramount traded 900 units at a new high of $3.65, up 5 cents.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator is pointing to a fluid situation between advancing and declining stocks early into next week as there were bids for 6 stocks higher and 6 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.

Filed Under: JSE Main Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, JSE Company, Trading Activity

TTSE: Moderate trading ends week

November 22, 2013 by IC Insider.com

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Friday, 22nd November 2013 | Trading on the Trinidad Stock Exchange was once again light with 703,189 shares valued at $2,000,769 changing hands on the last trading day of the week. At the close there was trading in 14 securities of which 4 advanced, 4 declined and 6 traded firm.

Angostura Holdings contributed 23,000 shares with a value of $302,150 as the price declined by 10 cents to end at $13.14; FirstCaribbean International Bank traded 9,000 units and closed firm at $6.75; First Citizens Bank added 12,175 shares valued at $438,313 and closed frim at $36; Guardian Holdings traded 8,680 units and suffered a loss of 11 cents to close at $14.83; Jamaica Money Market Brokers exchanged 512,460 shares for a value of $261,355 while losing 4 cents to close at 51 cents, as the stock reacted to weakness in the price in Jamaica over the past three weeks; Sagicor Financial Corporation 11,500 units at $7.22 up 2 cents; Trinidad Cement had a volume of 100,000 shares being traded for $225,000 and closed at $2.25, up 4 cents.

Clico Investment Fund traded 22,130 shares valued at $475,795 and closed firm at $21.50. Praetorian Property Mutual Fund declined by $0.05 to end at $3.55 as 1,000 shares traded.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed that there were bids for 4 stocks higher and 4 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.

Filed Under: Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, Trading Activity, TTSE

Carreras down but not out

November 22, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Carreras, the dominant cigarette distributor in Jamaica. is reporting lower profit from operations for the September quarter as it did for the June quarter as revenues fell from the 2012 levels even as the company had a price increase earlier this year.

Revenues plummeted by 25 percent for the six months period declining from $5.76 million to $4.4 million and by 16 percent in the second quarter from $2.67 billion in September 2012 quarter to just $2.24 billion; this is a big improvement from the 30 percent decline in the first quarter. The reality is that with a price hike of 17 percent in March, a sharp decline in volume is expected. This has always been the case in the past so there are no reason to think that it would be otherwise this time around. The situation is made worse by the stock piling of cigarettes by the trade in anticipation of the price hike.

Profit after tax was identical in both the June and September quarters at $485 million each; the profit for the six months fell 33 percent excluding the pension refund of approximately $2.5 billion net of tax in 2012. The interesting development is that gross margin improved to more than 100 percent from 90 in the similar period in 2012 and 86.5 for all of the 2013 fiscal year.

The smoking ban which was announced on June 25, immediately impacted the stock price influencing the pull down from $56 to $52.50 on the next day. Although the price recovered to the $55 level shortly thereafter, it slowly drifted to $50 by the end of July, prior to the results being released for the June quarter. The fall in profit seems to have pushed the stock price down to $35 to better equate the value with the lower profit and dividend payment. At the $35 level, it is gaining some support.

The price increase earlier this year had a negative impact on the company’s consumers took a big bite out of sales, far greater than any impact the smoking ban may be having. Sales enjoyed a big jump in the last half of 2012 up to the March this year suggesting that distributors stocked up on the product in anticipation of price increase and stopped stock piling once the price adjustment was implemented.

Expenses rise | While revenues plummeted, expenses have not, with sales & marketing going up by a third to $207 million from $152 million and rising by a smaller 22 percent for the half year to reach $415 million. Administrative expenses, which increased by 15 percent from to $320 million was up 19 percent to $634 million for the six months period.

Tax Recovered | The tax now recoverable that was down to $1.4 billion at June from $1.733 billion at the end of March, is now at $1.17 billion. If the tax authority continues to allow recovery against current liability then the full amount could be recovered before the end of the 2015 fiscal year and most likely be distributed as dividends to shareholders.

Carreras ended up with cash funds of $3.4 billion at the end of September, equity is at $3 billion or $6.30 per share. Current liabilities are at $2.67 billion which includes tax payable of $1.5 billion against current assets of $4.3 billion. There are no borrowed funds incurred to fund operations.

Carreras cut the quarterly dividend from $150 paid last year to $1 in light of the profit decline.

Outlook | Our forecast is for earnings to hit around $5 per share this current fiscal year, and if so, then the stock would be a reasonable buy around $35, the current price level. With a dividend yield of more than 10 percent before tax, the stock will be an attraction for income seeking investors.

Image courtesy of Scottchan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: Carreras, JSE Company

FX: J$ almost $106 to 1 US$

November 21, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Thursday, 21st November 2015 | The amount of US dollar sold was greater than the amount bought on the ForEx Market as the selling rate ended at just under $106 to a US dollar. In the end, there was purchasing by dealers of US$19,095,725 as the rate gained 19 cents to end at $105.02 and there was selling for US$23,240,273 at $105.97 for an increase of 17 cents. There was buying of C$1,350,848 as the rate fell by $1.31 to $99.47 and the amount sold was C$849,482 at an average rate of $101.35 off by 50 cents. The British Pound had £2,863,202 being bought as the rate went down 98 cents to $170.08 and the amount sold was £1,856,414 with the rate gaining 68 cents to end at $172.14.

Overall there was buying of the equivalent of US$25,153,210 and selling of US$27,383,407 for all currencies traded.

Highs & Lows | The US dollar moved up 15 cents to $107.20 for the highest buying rate and the low was unchanged at $85.59, while the highest and lowest selling rates remained unchanged at $109.67 and $102.50 respectively.

The highest buying rate of the Canadian dollar ended at $102.00 or 15 cents down while the low fell 17 cents to $80.34; the high for selling was at $104.55 up by 55 cents and the low was down 20 cents to $96.80.

The British Pound was bought as high as $172.55 for a 5 cent reduction and as low as $136.45, an increase of 58 cents; the highest rate sold at was $175.91 up by $2.13 and the low was at $164.75 an increase of $1.05.

Filed Under: FX Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, FX Market, Trading Activity

JSE: 15 stocks up only 3 down

November 21, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Thursday, 21st November 2015 | At the end of trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Wednesday there were bids for 10 stocks that were higher than their last selling price and only 2 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price, an indication that prices are most likely to reverse the decline seen for a number of days. This is one of the strongest positive indicators for some time.

In today’s trading, the market did just that with 15 stocks recording price gains to only 3 that fell but the measure of overall market performance the index just moved up marginally. At the end of trading things seemed to have cooled a bit as seen by the narrowing of the bid offer numbers in our Market Sentiment Indicator. The JSE Market Index closing at 77,086.98 up 85.92; JSE All Jamaican Composite closed at 75,823.39 up 149.37 and JSE Junior Market Index closed at 718.78 up 13.55. Trading was for 1,517,875 units valued at $12.4 million.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed that there were bids for 6 stocks higher and 3 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price, another strong indicator of a possible turnaround in the offing.

Main Market stocks | In main market trading, Berger Paints traded 30,000 and was down 20 cents to $1.80; Caribbean Cement stock price gained 20 cents to close at $2.20 with 33,823 changing hands; Carreras gained 63 cents to $35.70 as 26,772 units traded; Gleaner had 400,000 units changing hands unchanged at $1.11; Grace Kennedy traded 97,241 units to close at $56, down 51 cents; Hardware & Lumber exchanged 20,600 as the price fell 36 cents to $4.20; Jamaica Broilers Group saw 14,500 of its shares changing hands to close at $4.24, up by 5 cents; Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded 236,931 units to close at $8.10 $7.86 up by 24 cents; National Commercial Bank had another day of low trading with only 7,655 units as the price closed at $17.80, up 30 cents; Scotia Group exchanged 34,520 units to close at $17.50, up 50 cents and Scotia Investments had 11,000 shares trading at $27.99 for a gain of $1.98.

Proven Investments traded 101,250 to close firm at 12 US cents.

Junior Market | Trading picked up in the junior market with 9 companies involved in trading with Access Financial Services trading 23,000 shares to close up $1.22 at $9.50, a 52 weeks high; Caribbean Producers exchanged 163,909 units at $1.94 regaining the cent it lost in Wednesday’s trading; Caribbean Flavours & Fragrances had just 11,936 units trading firm at $2.60 and Lasco Manufacturing traded 275,998 units and closed up 15 cents to $1.40.

Filed Under: JSE Main Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, JSE Company, Trading Activity

TTSE: Very low trades

November 21, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Thursday, 21 November 2013 | Trading activity on the Trinidad Stock Exchange fell off with the number of company stocks traded being down and the level of trade per stock being small except in a few cases. Overall market activity resulted in trading of 9 securities of which 3 advanced, 2 declined and 4 traded firm. Trading took place only in the main market with 354,204 shares being exchanged, valued at $3,196,217.

FirstCaribbean International Bank traded 14,470 shares with a value of $97,673 as the price remained unchanged at $7.25; First Citizens Bank with a volume of 62,733 shares being traded for $2,258,999 closed firm at $36; while Jamaica Money Market Brokers had 270,000 shares changing hands for a value of $148,700 with the price closing at 55 cents off by 3 cents; Neal & Massy swapped 980 shares with the price increasing 10 cents to end the day at $59.11; Republic Bank added 5,220 shares valued at $600,613, the price was at $115.06 up 2 cents at the end of the day.

IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed that there were bids for 3 stocks higher and 5 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.

Filed Under: Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, Trading Activity, TTSE

FX: Pound, US$ up Canadian down

November 20, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Wednesday, 20th November 2013 | The public bought the US dollar and the Pound sterling at slightly higher rates but got the Canadian dollar for less than on Tuesday as dealers bought the equivalent of total of US$29,262,926 and sold the equivalent of US$32,368,147.

In forex trading authorised dealers bought US$24,957,522 as the buying rate slipped 17 cents to $104.83 while they sold US$28,889,947 at 5 cents lower than on Tuesday to end at $105.81. The Canadian dollar had buying for C$2,490,331 as the rate was up $1.55 to $100.78 while selling amounted to C$2,036,329 as the rate was down 40 cents to $101.85. £1,009,075 was bought as the rate was up 91 cents to $169.10 and selling amounted to £847,500 with the rate increasing by 15 cents to $171.47.

The US$ was bought as high as $107.05 for a 5 cents increase and as low as $85.59 for an increase of 9 cents and was sold as high as $109.67 which is unchanged from Tuesday, the low for selling was at $102.50, up by $16.99.

The Canadian dollar went as high as $102.15 on buying or for 5 cents down, and the low was unchanged at $80.51, the high for the selling rate was $104.00, up 21 cents and there was no change to the low of $97.00.

The British Pound went for $172.60 for a 45 cents increase for the highest buy rate and was unchanged at $135.87 for the low as the highest sell rate fell $1.38 to $173.78 and the low was unchanged at $163.70.

Image courtesy of Marcus/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: FX Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, FX Market, Trading Activity

JSE: Market down, but points up next

November 20, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Wednesday, 20th November 2013 | Trading activity on the Jamaica Stock Exchange resulted in 4 stocks advancing to 9 that declined as the indices mostly fell with JSE Market Index closing at 77,001.06 down 427.23; JSE All Jamaican Composite closed at 75,674.02 down 742.72 and JSE Junior Market Index closed at 705.23 down 14.74. KLE Group hit $1.10 and Caribbean Cream 88 cents, new all-time lows for both. Trading was for 1,648,532 units valued at $12.7 million.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed that there were bids for 10 stocks higher and 2 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price, one of the strongest indicator for some time.

Main Market stocks | In main market trading, Cable & Wireless traded 213,611 units unchanged to close at 15 cents; Caribbean Cement stock price lost 22 cents to close at $2 with 84,800 having changed hands; Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded 32,514 units to close at $7.86 up a cent; National Commercial Bank had only 6,150 units as the price closed at $17.50, down 30 cents; Sagicor Life put in 32,561 units and closed at $7.80, for a gain of 5 cents; Sagicor Real Estate X Fund traded 28,912 units to close firm at $5.20. Scotia Group exchanged 595,250 units to close at $17, down 11 cents.

Proven Investments traded 15,400 to close up at 12 US cents.

In the preference shares segment, Jamaica Money Market Brokers 8.75% traded 8,470 units at $2.90 down 10 cents and Proven Investments 8% traded 60,000 units to close unchanged at $5.09.

Junior Market | Trading picked up in the junior market with 9 companies involved in trading with KLE Group trading 7,187 units to close at a new low of $1.10 off by 20 cents; Blue Power Group traded 9,000 units, the price held firm at $9.28; Caribbean Cream traded 15,500 units to close 14 cents lower at a new all-time low of 88 cents; Caribbean Producers exchanged 37,055 units at $1.94 down a cent; Consolidated Bakeries had just 1,000 units trading at $1.39 up 19 cents; General Accident Insurance swapped 37,750 units at $1.60; Lasco Distributors had a reasonable day with 260,000 units trading to close firm at $1.45; Lasco Financial Services traded 183,220 units to close firm at $1 and Lasco Manufacturing traded 221,000 units and closed down 13 cents to $1.38.