Trading is off to a sedate start on the Jamaica Stock Exchange so far on Thursday.
Nineteen stocks traded with six junior market stocks have traded with Cargo Handlers reach an all-time high of $22 or rising 25 cents. Grace Kennedy traded at a high and if the stock was to close at the current price of $65.50 would result in a new 52 closing high.
Noticeable traded took place in National Commercial Bank with 410,023 units trading at $30 and JMMB 8.75% with 389,300 units at $3.
NCB trades 400K
Trading in 2 stocks halted
Trading was halted in Hardware and Lumber (H&L) in attempting to trade at $10 which is 29.7 percent above Monday’s close and Radio Jamaica (RJR) at $3 or 43.54 percent above the closing bid on Monday which was higher than the last price.
The stocks were halted as the price exceeded 15 percent permitted initially for a legimate trade to be effected at the time the price is struck. When the stocks reopened H&L trade went through but that RJR trade was cancelled a spokesperson on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) informed IC Insider that the latter is more than 30 percent that would be permitted and would be cancelled. Ciboney Group traded at 9 cents or 28.57 percent from the last price but the stock closed with the bid at 8 cents yesterday which allowed the stock to trade unimpeded.
Noted trades took place in Carib Cement traded at $5 with 50,000 shares, Carreras with just 1,000 but it traded at $49 for a new 52 week’s high, JMMB Group at $10, a new 52 weeks’ high, National Commercial Bank with 236,291 shares at $30, Sagicor Group 160,257 ended at $11.50, Supreme Ventures traded 750,000 at $3.12, Scotia Group fell by $1 to 424, Proven Investments traded 24,800 at 20.99 US cents, Cargo Handlers traded 20,000 units $21.50, for new Caribbean Producers traded 572,500 shares at #3.05 and Lasco Manufacturing traded 65,600 at $1.35.
Market makes small correction
Although there were more stocks rising than falling, declines in the prices of National Commercial Bank and Scotia Group were the main reason behind the fall. At the close, the JSE Market Index lost 606.45 points to 95,482.64, the JSE All Jamaican Composite index fell 678.03 points to close at 105,472.32 and the JSE combined index dropped 514.59 points to close at 97,418.36.
IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading, in the main and junior markets, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows 11 stocks with bids higher than their last selling prices and only 2 with offers that were lower.
In trading, Cable & Wireless ended with 899,126 shares trading at 48 cents, Caribbean Cement closed with 3,506,670 units trading 20 cents higher to $4.20, but the stock traded as high as $5. Trading was halted in the stock when it initially hit $5, that price, exceeded 15 percent permitted initially, but on resumption after an hour and minutes before trading closed, the trade at the high, went through. Carreras finished with 8,160 units as the price slipped 32 cents to $47.18, Grace Kennedy finished trading with 216,915 units and put on 41 cents to close at $64.01. JMMB Group concluded trading with just 10,465 shares and closed with a gain of 30 cents at a new 52 weeks’ high of $8.30, Mayberry Investments traded 264,418 units to close higher by 14 cents higher at $2.79 for a new 52 weeks’ high. National Commercial Bank finished trading with 3,569,062 shares but the price dropped by 51 cents to $29.99 after trading as high as $30.50, Sagicor Group had dealings in 34,220 units to close with a gain of 47 cents, to a new 52 weeks’ closing high of $12. Scotia Group contributed 1,236,023 units with a decline of 49 cents to $25, Scotia Investments ended with 19,550 shares trading lower by $2.72 to $24.28, Supreme Ventures closed with 31,377 shares trading with a gain of 1 cent to a new 52 weeks’ closing high of $3.51 and Proven Investments finished with 22865 units to end at 21 US cents.
Carib Cement shares frozen
Caribbean Cement is now listed as trading at $5 which would be the highest for more than a year, but the trade pushing the price to that level has, resulted in the stock being frozen from trading for an hour.
The stock can trade up to another 15 percent higher from the $4.60 or a maximum of $5.29 for the day. Mayberry Investments crossed 300,000 units at $4.08 shares which were sold from in house inventory to a client similarly another 1,000,000 units at $4.18 and 2,000,000 units at $4.20 was similarly traded by them fro in house inventory.
Mayberry Investments also traded 177,448 shares at $4.80 and 7,000 at $5 both these trades exceeded the permitted price change of 15 percent which led to the stock be frozen unit 11.48am. the stock has been responding to a big jump in profit for the first quarter, suggesting earnings should exceed $1 per shares.
JSE off to tamer start than Friday
Trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange stared off the week on a calmer note, than it did last Friday but there have been a few sizable trades so far.
The larger trades in the first hour of trading are, Caribbean Cement with 300,000 changing hands at $4.08, Grace Kennedy 215,470 shares at $64, National Commercial Bank 3,512,412 shares at $30 and Scotia Group first traded 690,287 shares at $25 and then added more at $24.50 and a 1,390 units traded at $25, to bring the total to 714,543 units. The bulk of the National Commercial Bank shares were crosses done by NCB Capital Markets and that of Scotia Group were crosses done by Scotia Investments as well as purchased from other brokers. Thirteen stocks have traded so far amounting to 4.99 million units with four coming from the junior market.
Main Market| The JSE Market Index gained 712.88 points to 95,376.21, the JSE All Jamaican Composite index jumped 797.02 points to close at 105,353.33, just below the level reached on November 11, 2011 and the JSE combined index leaped 679.81 points to close at 97,253.14.
Market off to brisk start on Friday
The Jamaica Stock Exchange was off to a spirited start on Friday. By 9.35am, 8 securities traded, pushing the all Jamaica composite Index up 550.88 points to 103,543.13 and the JSE market Index up by 492.72 points to 93,757.15.
By 10 am the indices were up strongly as a number of stocks hit new 52 weeks high. The all Jamaica composite Index is up 935.61 points to 103,927.86 and the JSE market Index up by 836.32 points to 94,101.25, after an hours trading and the number of securities trading is up to 11.
Only one junior market stock has traded so far. Stocks pushing the indices are Carreras up to $47.40 from $47.08, Desnoes & Geddes up to $6.49 from $6.02, Sagicor group trading at $12 up from Thursday’s $11.01.
I cannot understand
I guess I am getting too old to understand modern day practices or maybe it’s that the younger generation just don’t care about correctness. I could not understand how the Trinidad & Tobago Stock Exchange could have been so confused with the change in name for JMMB Group and listed them on their trading system as Jamaica Money Market Brokers Group Ltd. It was one thing to call the company by the incorrect name in publication of trading but a totally different thing to have the incorrect name in the official trading information as well as the fact sheet on the company.
I remember the days when there were heavy trading in stocks in Jamaica, in the 1990s when the market trading data was manually compiled and the indices computed manually. Back then, it took quite a while for the final report to be issued because they had to make sure the information was correct. Now we have errors being reported daily and there is no information going out to public to correct the errors.
I don’t understand for example why Sterling Investment could have told shareholders in their circular reporting the allocation for rights, for them to subscribe to, that the number of shares in issue is 40 million units and that the record date for the stock split was March 8 this year, and that the notice was published on the JSE website, yet a check on the trading sheets show no change in the trading prices of the stock with the last trading price, the highs and lows still at $134 nor the amount of shares in issue.
The last time we checked, the Manager at the exchange explained that there was a computer programming problem that prevented the highs and lows from being corrected in the case of the three Lasco companies. But that was from 2013, surely they must be able to sort that out by now and certainly, they ought not to be sending false data to the public without some notation to indicate what is the correct. One has to question where is the FSC in all of this?
A check on the JSE website still shows the number of issued shares of Sterling as 4,014,547, vastly different from what the rights issue circular says is the number. The Jamaica Stock Exchange is spending much to roll out a system of direct trading, all kudos to them, but they must pay greater attention to the little details that are of import. It cannot be right to leave errors out in the public for long periods without correction or at least a note as to the correct information. For example there are trading sheets posted with erroneous trading data because the markets hours were either extended beyond 1 PM or corrections were make after trading ended and the report released.
Recently a reader wrote of his concern about small trades which he asked his broker to avoid, here is what was said “the purchase of 200 Brow and 100 SVL: can you try to avoid such transactions by whatever means possible: deleting buy orders when only small volumes are available, deleting orders when only a small balance is remaining to be filled, etc- whatever you can do. This is retrograde step which JSE has taken and they are wrong in saying that is a global standard. I sure that it is not.”
The reader is absolutely correct. I had a case where a small amount of Cable & Wireless shares were traded, based of the various fees charged by the JSE and the brokers I ended up owing the broker although I sold the stock, that by the way is not a joke. I get the impression that the stock exchange sees investors the way the government sees tax payers, just milk them and ignore their pleas for we have the power. Whatever happened to customer friendliness or the customer is king or queen? Barbados has a system where small trades as routed through the odd lot market. Why can’t we do the same or better yet, treat orders as one trade for fee purposes when such orders are filled from many smaller amounts. Whatever the system the present one is wrong.