The All Jamaican Composite Index (AJI) of the Jamaica Stock Exchange jumped by 7,986.88 points to a record 443,244.68 at 10 am in early trading on Tuesday and the JSE Index climbed 7,257.92 points to a record 403,781.78 to be well ahead of the record close on Monday.
The Junior Market index rose13.69 points to sit at 2,978.12 after slipping slightly in early trading.
Caribbean Cement traded just 1,400 shares up to $77.90, but the exchange has the average price rising $4.43 to have the major impact on the indices move, along with Sagicor Real Estate Fund with a recorded average price change of 89 cents and NCB Financial trading 16,225 shares at $148 with an average change of $5.43. NCB now has a bid of $151 to buy 329 shares and an offer to sell 47,231 at $152.
Record high for JSE – Tuesday
The Lab, coming to a broker near you
NCB Capital Markets is readying a number of new public share issues to come to market by the summer this year.
Numbered amongst them are, The Lab that styles itself as a fully integrated 100 percent Jamaican born and bred advertising agency with global reach and an island swagger. “We are a strategic, creative, passionate solutions oriented and no nonsense group with a heavy emphasis on getting stuff done.” Kimala Bennett is the company’s Managing Director. Clients include National Commercial Bank, JPS, Wendy’s, Dominos, Supreme Ventures, Wray and Nephew, Grace Kennedy, Caribbean Broiler and Digicel. Persons in the know say this is one of those IPOs to plan for, it unique and profitable. QWI Investments is another that NCB Capital Markets is readying to take to the Jamaica Stock Exchange main market by early summer.
Kimala Bennett, Managing Director of The Lab.
Another that will be coming to market is Sagicor Select Funds Limited an Exchange Traded Fund. According to a note in the Sagicor Group audited financial statements, “It is the intention of the company to apply to the Board of the Jamaica Stock Exchange for admission of the shares to trading on the main market if subscriptions of at least $5 billion are raised.”
The above will come on top of the current public offer of Wigton Windfarm that opens next week to raise $5.5 billion, earmarked to be paid over to the government after expenses associated with the offer.
Huge interest in Jamaican stock market
With interest rates now at the lowest on receord in Jamaica and the local stock market now in its fifth year of a bull run, more and more persons are turning to the stock market for investment opportunities.
The increased interest is aptly demonstrated by the more than 1,300 persons who attended the Jamaica Stock Exchange receent staging of the 50th Anniversary Investor Forum. Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Director of the JSE said the record high turnout was historic and affirmation that Jamaicans are warming to the idea of investing in the stock market. “Being the number one performing stock exchange in the world says a lot and this has awakened Jamaicans at home and abroad to the possibilities that exist, when they invest in the market, which has returned over 300 percent over the last five years. This is significant and of course, persons are looking forward to benefit,” she said.
The record turnout comes against a well publized new public share issue by the Government of Jamaica, in the sale of 11 billion shares in Wigton Windfarm, at 50 cents each.
The event was sponsored by Barita Investments, with several of their top managers making presentations, including Vanessa Williams, Manager Mandeville branch and Ferris Jackson, Investment Advisor at Barita’s Kingston Office.
Use PE ratio to make big bucks
Investors can improve return on their stock market investment by just following one critical measure, the PE ratios of stocks. Buy low PE ratio stocks and sell those that are too high relative historical norm that almost a sure recipe for making good money in the stock market.
An important factor worth noting is that the PE ratios based on 2018 earnings are well ahead of those for 2019 earnings. The average PE of stocks listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange based on 2018 earnings is just under 19 times, reflecting valuation as high as 60 times 2018 earnings, with some with PEs in single digits.
The Junior Market boast average PEs around of 17, while the main market is at 19.5. The Junior Market typical PE hoovers around 16 while that of the main market is around 15, all based on 2018 earnings. The typical PE is where a large number of stocks are clustered.
While many investors see stocks as cheap, based on price, that is not the basis of investing in a stock. The focus on the PE is most critical. It is the tool used by most investors to determine if a stock is worth having or not. Many individual investors consider NCB Financial as expensive at
Chart showing falling interest rates & rising PE ratio of the Jamaica Stock Market.
Investors can compare, the current PE based on 2019 estimated earnings of each stock against the typical ones based on 2018, to get a picture of which ones are likely to gain strongly this year. IC Insider.com daily stock market report charts carry projected earnings and current PE for each stock that investors can use as their tool for identifying stocks with above average potential gains.
New index for JSE on Friday
The Jamaica Stock Exchange introduces the long overdue JSE Financial Index on Friday. The index will track the performance of financial services companies, listed on the exchange.
The JSE Financial Index is the JSE’s first Sector Index since 1974. The Index will commence at a base of 100 points. The index includes insurance companies, banks, microfinance companies, consumer finance companies and diverse financial services companies listed on both the Main Market and Junior Market and trade in Jamaican dollars. The JSE Financial Index will provide information on the overall performance of the financial sector.
Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Director of the JSE stated that, “Innovation is the key for survival of any company. In keeping with its 50th anniversary celebration, the JSE will be introducing new products, services and market measurements that will be of interest to all market participants. Consistent with other Indices on the market, the JSE Financial Index will be computed using the weighted average market capitalization method. The Index will be calculated in real time and reported daily, in the same manner as the other JSE’s Indices.”
“Almost 30 percent of the companies listed on the Exchange are financial companies and therefore, this is a useful Index to track this important sector”, the Managing Director stated. “We are looking to develop more sector specific Indices in the near future”, she went on to say.
The other indices of the exchange are, the JSE Combined Index, the JSE Index, the JSE All Jamaican Composite Index, the JSE Select Index, the JSE Cross Listed Index, the Junior Market Index and the JSE USD Equities Index. Up to 1974, the exchange had a utilities index that was discontinued in that year, an Industrial index and a Composite index.
JSE trading hits record in 2018
The Jamaica Stock Exchange enjoyed its best year ever in 2018, with trading in the main market climbing 110.40 percent over 2,590,383,796 shares in 2017 to reach 5,450,190,431 units valued at $75,469,542,096, up by 105.70% compared to $36,689,806,007 traded in 2017.
In the final quarter of 2018, trading volume excluding block transactions in the main market fell by 13 percent to 915 million shares with the value increasing 62.4 percent to $22,271,459,936, for the highest quarterly value traded for 2018, data from the Jamaica Stock Exchange show.
Trading activity fell in the Junior Market in 2018, versus the previous year, as regular trading declined 70 percent in December and helped push the volume down by 10 percent for the year and the value by 15 percent. Trading in the Junior Market resulted in 26,845 transactions in 2018 and 1,415,717,406 units changing hands for $5,848,812,746 compared to 22,230 transactions and 1,347,735,367 shares valued at $6,863,734,529.90 in 2017, for regular and block transactions.
In the US dollar market, 15.5 percent less transactions occurred, but volume traded was just marginally down to 43,576,278 units with a decline of 30 percent in value to US$8,765,761, from US$12.5 million in 2017.
With trading reaching the above levels and equating to more than US$633 million in 2018, the market has surpassed the record $40 billion or US$630 million traded in 2005.
For January this year, the overall volume amounted to 1,230,485,201 units valued at $5,675,185,083 up sharply from 201,572,646 shares valued at $3,001,143,584, last year January.
The increased trading while indicating increased buying interest in the market, it is signaling a major switch in interest from the Junior Market stocks to the main market, last year. It also suggest that institutional investors are more involved in the market than before. Finally, it telegraph a strong message about the prospects for the profitability for the Jamaica Stock Exchange should the trend continue.
JSE down over 5,000 points in late trading
Trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange starts today with the preopening going from 2.30pm with trading opening at 2.45Pm.
Trading will end at 4 Pm in a shortened session after the trading platform became non functional across the Caribbean region today. With the long interuption the JSE is yet to inform the public and entities that that get their feed about teh interruption and commencement of trading. It appears that the general public and investors who are avid flllowers of the market are unimportant in the scheme of things.
With only a few minutes into trading only the Junior Market inched up just 8.14 points and the JSE all Jamaica Composite index dropped 5,384.11 points to 412,404.03.
Stock trading disrupted across Caribbean
Trading has not commenced on either the Trinidad or Jamaica Stock exchanges up to 1 PM, Jamaica time.
Based on a release from the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange, (TTSE) a systemic problem affected the trading activity in allof the three exchanges in Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados is the reason for the lack of trading earlier in the day.
The TTSE issued a release earlier today as follows, “TTSE wishes to advise all our valued stakeholders of a delay in trading on January 4th, 2019 due to a technical infrastructure issue experienced by one of our service providers which has impacted all three (3) major regional exchanges and is beyond the control of the TTSE. While our service providers are working expeditiously to resolve this issue, we have activated our business continuity process and advise that trading will commence later today. We thank you for your patience and cooperation at this time.”
The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) advised no one of the problem, while a check on the Barbados Stock Exchange website revealed no information on trading for the day.
Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Director of the JSE.
IC Insider.com had previously indicated that the problem was with the current trading platform that was installed at the start of 2016, has been plagued with several problems. Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Directors of the JSE advised that the problem was not with the platform but was a connectivity issue that impacted the system that prevented trading from taking place.
Big gains for JSE Monday
The main market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange surged 11,391.32 points on the All Jamaica Composite index (AJI) with nearly 2 hours of trading on Monday with the index at 417,227.47 points but pulled back from the day’s high of 421,063.54 points earlier after rising 15,227.39 points.
The JSE Index climbed 10,378.78 points to 380,141.40 but the Junior Market Index rose 47.45 points to 3,229.84.
NCB Financial traded at $150, Barita Investments traded at a new high of $55, Grace Kennedy at $68.50 and Sagicor Real Estate Fund jumped to $13.93.
JSE in big rise Friday morning
The main market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange surged 11,371 points on the All Jamaica Composite index (AJI) with nearly 2 hours of trading on Friday with the index at 408,686.63 points but pulled back to be at 406,567 points at 11:30 up 9,251.52 points.
The JSE Index climbed 10,360.40 points to 370,428.51 but the Junior Market Index slipped 5.01 points to 3,184.75. The rise so far still leaves the AJI short of the 11,126.51 points lost over the past two trading days.
NCB Financial traded at $146.83, Barita Investments traded at a new high of $50, Sagiccor Real Estate Fund jumped to $13.95 while Salada Foods traded at a new high of $35 but pulled back to $30 after. JMMB Group that traded 327 million shares traded 20.7 million shares today.
