The Junior Market lost 2.9 percent in value in 2024, the second consecutive year of decline and one of the few years it underperformed the Main Market but turned out the stock with the greatest gain in the entire Jamaica Stock Exchange for 2024. 
Blue Power, a manufacturer of soaps was the best performer for the year by far, with a surge of 111 percent in the price, helped by a 23.5 percent growth in profit for the half year to October, the only stock gaining more than 100 percent for the year.
In a year when only 20 stocks gained and 28 declined, Iron Rock Insurance gained 59 percent with a big jump in profits for 2023 and the nine months in 2024, followed by Regency Petroleum, up by 40 percent, buoyed by continuation of expansion in service stations. Everything Fresh rose 36 percent following improved 2024 profit and Tropical Battery 32 percent, while Honey Bun and Caribbean Assurance gained 31 percent.
The worst performing stocks, mostly suffered from poor profit results and in some cases financial distress. Edufocal fell a whopping 78 percent and is the leading losing stock for the year, as the company struggles to turn around it’s loss making operation, placing severe pressure on its finances. 
MFS Partners followed with a drop of 76 percent, as it was still unable to be consistently profitable after having a third set of owners at the helm, CAC 2000 lost 56 percent, with results up to the third quarter still heavily in the red, despite reporting a profit in the third quarter, KLE Group fell 42 percent and Medical Disposables 40 percent.
The market continues to message investors, in a year when interest rates remained relatively high, careful stock selection is the best way of successfully investing as companies posting increased profit will usually increase in value, over those that have not.
The three top performing stocks are 
the Junior Market listed Blue Power with a gain of 111 percent.
Pulse investments was the worst performing stock in market with a fall of 45 percent followed by the big loss maker RJR Group down 35 percent, Eppley chipped with a fall of 31 percent, 
If the above is achieved, it would put murders in line to match the 976 cases in 2003 and the lowest in more than two decades. If the security forces make further inroads the social malady, the numbers next year could fall well below the 2003 outcome.
Unemployment rose sharply between in 1977 as the economy contracted significantly, accompanied by capital and human flight. The unemployment rate of just over 11.2 percent in 1975 jumped to 23.8 percent in 1977 and to 27.7 percent in 1979 and remained around 26 percent to 1989, with a few years of modest fall. From 1990 the unemployment numbers started to moderate as can be seen from the chart, but increased murders had just started to climb in 1990 a 15 year lag from the sharp jump in unemployment that provided a greater pool of recruits for criminal activities for several years.
For the capital city of Kingston, traffic passing through the Norman Manley airport rose a solid 8.5 percent to 139,600 from 128,700 in October 2023 and for the year to date a decline of 0.2 percent from 1,467,600 to 1,464,500 in October, this year. experienced a year to date decline by 2.2 percent from 4,313,200 passenger traffic in October 2023 to 4,216,400 with just two more months left in the year, data from Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico operators of the two major international airports in Jamaica reveal in their preliminary data release.
Remittance inflows to Jamaica climbed or 3.6 percent by US$10.4 million to US$299.6 million from US$289.2 million for the same period in 2023 and represent the third month of the year with an increase.
Unfortunately, the prospectus has errors relating to data on profitability in 2024, resulting in uncertainty as to what years some of the information relates with both captioned with 2024 as the financial years and error in the interim statement of financial position to January.
Willaims went on to state, “The Company is in a new cycle of its growth which will be underpinned by the utilisation of a higher proportion of equity to fund its future expansion. As a result, the proceeds from this Invitation will be mainly used to repay the Company’s debts. This debt reduction will have the immediate effect of reducing the Company’s financing costs, thereby increasing the Company’s profitability and the expected returns to shareholders.
Last year murders were down 12.5 percent to 655 compared with 749 for the same period in 2022. If the trend so far in 2024 continues murders could fall below 1,200 for the first time since 2015.
The hotspots for murders of St James and Westmoreland saw a reduction of 31 and 12 percent to 73 and 57 murders respectively, St Ann has a decrease of 24 percent from 42 murders last year to 32 this year, Clarendon had a 38 percent fall to 37 from 60 in 2023, while Kingston Western dropped 39 percent higher to 28. St Andrew South lost 20 percent of its residents with 51 persons losing their lives by murderers compared with 64 in 2023 to early July. St Catherine North had a 10 percent reduction in murders with 46 versus 51 in the same period in 2023 and the South saw 19 percent fewer persons falling to their death by unlawful means with 44 deaths, down from 54 in 2023.
Passenger traffic through Sangster’s International Airport in Montego Bay in June slipped marginally from 448,500 last year to 447,400 which dragged the six months performance to an increase of just 3.2 percent to 2,742,400 from 2,656,800 in 2023, while Kingston Norman Manley dipped 2.2 percent to 144,400 from 147,700 in 2023, and declined 2.3 percent to 810,600 from 829,500.
Investors buying into the public offer of NCB Financial Group stock at $65 each in May are hugging up an 18 percent loss on their investment since, with the stock hitting a 52 weeks’ low of $54.66 on Monday and ending at a closing low of $55 after more than 1.5 million shares were traded, following a sizable 3 million share trade on June 17, when the stock closed at $59.
NCB is a diversified financial group, providing services in general insurance, life insurance, banking and investments management. The group is also geographically diversified with operations in Trinidad, Bermuda and Jamaica. It has a solid base that it can use to produce increased revenues and profits in the future.