Stock Market — Page 1149

BOJ confirms IC Insider FX report

August 21, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Jamaica’s central bank purchased US$193.6 million (net) from the market in the context of tight Jamaica Dollar liquidity during the June quarter putting the Net International Reserves at end of June to US$1.003 billion, US$119 million above the outturn for end of March 2013. The increase is in line with what IC Insider surmised in our post “What’s BOJ up to in FX & money market?” that it was the central bank driving the exchange rate movement. The Bank’s gross reserves at end-June 2013 amounted to US$1.88 billion, representing 12.9 weeks of projected goods and services imports.

The central bank in its latest release on the economy stated that “given periodic episodes of demand pressures, the Bank offered two USD indexed bonds and nine VR instruments as part of its liquidity management programme. These actions would have also constrained the pace of adjustment of the exchange rate”.

The Bank estimates that there was a decline of US$72.4 million in Net Private Capital (NPC) flows during the quarter. NPC flows declined in the context of heightened concerns regarding the near-term outlook for the exchange rate. This reduction was, however, constrained by tight Jamaica Dollar liquidity which limited the ability of investors and merchants to hedge against further movements in the exchange rate. In this regard, the net open foreign currency position of authorized dealers (AD) is estimated to have declined by US$207.3 million during the quarter. Most of the reduction in AD positions occurred in June. These developments contributed to an increase of 10 per cent in average per diem purchases to US$28.8 million relative to the March 2013 quarter. Concurrently, average per diem sales increased by 25.1 per cent to US$32.3 million, the BOJ statement concluded.

Filed Under: Economy, FX Market, Stock Market Tagged With: BOJ, Economy, GOJ

FX: Stable rates all round

August 20, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Tuesday, 20th August 2013 | Trading on the forex market resulted in fairly stable rates on Tuesday for buying and selling the three main foreign currencies. Trading in US dollars brought in $27 million at 7 cents more on average as the rate settled at $101.29 and $26.7 million selling at a cent more than Monday’s average rate as it closed at $101.94. The change in trading the Canadian dollar was somewhat different from the US dollar as it took 10 cents on average to purchase the Canadian at $96.41 as purchases amounted to $756,000 and sales took place at 36 cents less than Monday’s average rate for $563,000 at the average rate of $98.26. The pound fell on both the buying and selling rates as it cost dealers 6 cents less at $157.09 in buying £1.26 million while the selling of £716,000 took place at 27 cents more at $159.46.

Overall the equivalent of $30 million were purchased and $28.66 million were sold.

There was no change in the lowest selling rates for the Canadian dollar and Pound and none in the highest selling rate for the US dollar. The highest buying rate for the US dollar was off 5 cents to $102.45 and the low price was $83.92 but the lowest selling rate was at $98 down $1.50. In the case of the Canadian, it took 25 cents more in buying the currency at the highest rate which ended up at $98.95 and 11 cents less for the highest selling rate of $102.40 but $3.25 more for the lowest selling rate of $95.70. For the Pound all 3 rates declined with the highest buying moving down by 80 cents to $159.90, the highest selling was down $3.65 at $162.73 and the lowest at $154, off 35 cents.

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

JSE: Moderate gains

August 20, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Tuesday, 20th August 2013 | The market closed off today as stocks of 28 companies traded with a volume of 3.69 million valued at $20.57 million. There were 8 stocks advancing and 10 declining as all the indices gained moderately except for the junior market. The cross listed had no trades.

The All Jamaica Index gained 533.18 points and closed at 85,994.08 and the JSE Market Index increased by 303.03 to close at 85,676.88 the Junior Market closed down by 15.33 closing at 794.11.

Main market | Cable & Wireless traded 401,991 units firm at 15 cents, Carreras had 50,460 units changing hands at $49.10 valued at $2.478 million, Caribbean Cement accounted for 75,913 as the stock traded as high as $2.50 before it closed at $2.22, up 12 cents, Desnoes & Geddes traded 386,000 units valued at $1.74 million and lost 2 cents to close at $4.50, Grace Kennedy traded 6,050 units lost 4 cents to close at $56.95, Jamaica Money Market Brokers saw 577,150 units changing hands valued at $4.9 million and closed at $8 down 10 cents for the day. National Commercial Bank 29,696 shares traded with a closing price of $18.51, down 5 cents. Pan Jamaican Investment Trust had just 7,539 units trading firm at $51.10. Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited 7,720 saw trading at $9, which is down 50 cents from Monday’s traded price but the offer at the end of trading was $8.45 for 26,000 units. Scotia Group had one of the largest trades in monetary terms as 299,551 units changed hands at a closing price of $21.01 to cost $6.37 million, the stock traded firm.

Junior market | Trading picked up in the junior market on Tuesday with the Lasco companies picking up in volume as profit taking in the shares appears to be ending while demand is returning for them. Consolidated Bakeries traded 354,230 units, the most since June 28 and closed at $41.41, up a cent. Blue Power traded up to $9.60 but closed at $9.21, up 3 cents in trading 36,100 units. The company posted improved quarterly results yesterday and investors seemed to have been responding positively to them. Cargo Handlers closed at $13, up 38 cents in trading 3,000 units, Dolphin Cove lost 80 cents in late trading to close at $8.20 with only 1,200 shares trading. Lasco Distributors closed at $1.46 in trading 574,199 units, Lasco Financial Services traded 376,901 firm at $1.52, Lasco Manufacturing closed at $1.59, down a cent in trading 379,616 units.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows that bids for 1 stock was higher with 2 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price. This is the weakest this signal has been since we started tracking and suggests a ‘sideways market’ at this time.

Related posts | Blue Power profit up 20%

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

TTSE: Trinidad Cement still holds sway

August 20, 2013 by IC Insider.com

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Tuesday, 20th August 2013 | Trinidad Cement stock price has more than doubled since late June. Yet it continues to be in demand as the stock led today’s trading with 455,377 units changing hands valued at $884,472. The stock traded firm at $1.95. Scotiabank Trinidad & Tobago with a volume of 113,314 shares accounted for the bulk of money invested in the market amounting to $7,931,980 as the stock closed firm at $70.

Trading in the market remained moderate with the stocks of 9 companies changing hands, with 3 advancing, 2 declining and 4 trading firm resulting in a volume of 700,215 shares crossing the floor of the Exchange valued at $9,269,574.

Scotia Investments Jamaica, contributed 69,392 shares with a value of $142,155 as it put on 1 cent to close at $2.03 but traded as high as $2.05, while Grace Kennedy added 33,692 shares valued at $111,288 while losing 9 cents to close at $3.30. National Flour traded 20,140 firm at 70 cents.

Unilever Caribbean with a mere 500 units trading gained $0.23 to end the day at $55.25 as the bid at the end of trading was at $55.28 for 1,000 shares. Clico Investment Fund, posted a volume of 5,300 shares valued at $112,890 and declined by 20 cents to end at $21.30.

JMMB did not trade on Tuesday but had a bid for 458,940 units at 50 cents the same as Monday’s last traded price and an offer of 143,000 units at 57 cents.

IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer market sentiment indicator shows that bids for 3 stocks were higher with 2 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

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

FX: More sales than buys

August 19, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Monday, 19th August 2013 | Trading in Monday’s forex market was characterised by heavy selling which exceeded the amount bought by nearly US$8 million. Selling of US$ was US$7 million more than bought with buying amounting to US$34.18 million at an average of $101.22, down 15 cents while selling totalled US$41.6 million at $101.93 down 2 cents. The Pound sterling also had more selling than the amounts bought with £3.18 million sold at an average price of $159.74 up 91 cents over Fridays price, versus £2.75 million purchased at an average price of $157.16, up 26 cents.

The Canadian dollar was purchased at 88 cents lower at $96.51 as C$1.29 million was bought and C$899,218 sold at 6 cents more than on Friday at an average of $98.62.

There was flux in the highest and lowest rates for the day with the US dollar being bought 5 cents more for the highest rate at $102.50 and sold at $13.83 more for the lowest selling rate which ended at $99.50. There was no change to the lowest buying and highest selling rates, which remains at $83.75 and $107.54 respectively.

The Canadian was bought at 30 cents less than on Friday at $98.70, while the lowest buying rate was 8 cents less than Friday’s rate as it closed at $79.43. Selling took place at the same rate as Friday of $102.51 at the high and $3.35 lower for the lowest rate of $92.45. The Pound was purchased as high as $160.70 up by $1.30 and 88 cents more at $129.07 for the lowest buying rate. Selling was $3.88 more at $166.38 for the highest selling rate and just 15 cents less for the lowest selling rate at $154.35.

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

JSE: Heavy trades for JPG and JMMB

August 19, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Monday, 19th August 2013 | The market closed off today as stocks of 27 companies traded with a volume of 4.196 million units valued at $30.1 million. There were 11 stocks advancing and 8 declining as all the indices gained moderately except for a small fall in the US$ market. The cross listed index had no trades.

The all Jamaica Index gained 130.14 points and closed at 85,460.90 and the JSE market index increased by 73.96 to close at 85,373.85, the junior market gained 6.60 closing at 809.44.

Main Market trades of note | Cable & Wireless traded 530,000 units and slipped 2 cents to close at 15 cents. Other stocks with major changes on the day are Desnoes & Geddes with 52,837 units falling by 9 cents to close at $4.52, Grace Kennedy with 26,000 units valued at $1,481,300, gained 99 cents to $56.99, Jamaica Broilers Group, 66137 units to close at $5 up 2 cents, Jamaica Money Market Brokers having another heavy trade with 661,166 units valued at $5,324,306, closed at $8.10, Jamaica Producers Group 653,240 units at $18.25 up 73 cents with a value of $11,914,904, National Commercial Bank had only 9,000 at $18.55 up by 5 cents. Sagicor Life, 238,356 units valued at $2,118,414 to close at $9.50 up $1 and Scotia Group 16,428, closing at $21.10 up 2 cents. Carreras gained 60 cents as just 1,890 shares changed hands, the stock closed with a bid of $49.10 for 52,775 shares. Caribbean Cement Company traded at $2.10, a new 52 weeks high but with only 2,042 units trading and gaining 10 cents on the day.

Junior market | The junior market recovered from a lacklustre Friday when only 4 stocks traded, to a day in which 8 traded. Blue Power slipped by 42 cents to close at $9.18 with only 5,585 units trading. After the market closed, the company reported increased profit for the June quarter of $30 million compared to $25 million in the same period last year, an increase of 20%. Caribbean Producers traded 9,500 shares and dropped 7 cents, closing at $2.03. Consolidated Bakeries traded 69,160 shares and closed up 5 cents to $1.40. General Accident Insurance traded 35,000 shares firm at $1.85. Lasco Financial Services traded 146,909 shares, closed up 2 cents to $1.52. Lasco Manufacturing had trading in 401,924 shares and dropped 5 cents to $1.60.

Eppley shares have still not traded since listing and has one bid for 450 units at $350.

Proven Investment Preference shares traded 1,073,900 units valued at $5,466,151, while the ordinary shares which are quoted in US dollar traded 89,000 at a value of US$10,591. Yhe stock lost a fraction of a cent to close at US.1190 cents.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer market sentiment indicator shows that bids for 5 stocks were higher with 1 stock having an offer lower than their last traded price.

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

TTSE: Trinidad Cement heads towards $2

August 19, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Monday, 19th August 2013 | TCL climbed 19 cents in Monday’s trading to close at $1.95m, a new 52 weeks high with 23,820 units trading for $46,029. At the end of trading 25,000 units were on the bid at $1.95 cents and 171,980 on offer at $1.95.

National Commercial Bank Jamaica had a volume of 29,956 shares changing hands for a value of $34,449. LJ Williams contributed 18,114 shares with a value of $11,774, while National Enterprises Limited added 16,905 shares valued at $270,480. One Caribbean Media traded just 52 units and declined by 2 cents to close at $18.00. ScotiaBank had 2,740 units changing hands at Friday’s closing price of $70, West Indian Tobacco traded 7,630 units at $117.05 with no price change, Unilever traded 4,819 units firm at $55.02. Clico Investment Fund traded 17,480 shares valued at $375,736 and closed firm at $21.50.

Market activity resulted from trading in 12 securities with a volume of 128,921 valued at $2,247,758 as 1 stock advanced, 2 declined and 9 traded firm.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer market sentiment indicator shows that bids for 3 stocks were higher with 2 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

One stock with the bid higher than the last sales price is Scotia Investments with a bid of $2.03 for 44,548 units and an offer of 20,000 units at $2.25. The stock last traded at $2.02. Jamaican Money market brokers did not trade but the bid at 50 cents for 474,940 units with 143,038 units on offer at 57 cents.

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

Buy Rated stock list grows

August 19, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Monday, 19th August 2013 | The reporting season is now in full swing with June quarterly results rolling in almost every day.

Stock Watch | New to the Watch list is RJR as the company reported a strong turnaround from cost cutting and increased revenues in the June quarter to record a small profit. Look out for our post on their last quarter later this week.

Buy Rated | We have added First Citizens to the Buy Rated list since the IPO has been fully subscribed. Unfortunately investors will have to wait until 16th September before they can trade in the stock on the Trinidad Stock Market.

Also new to the Buy Rated list is General Accident, a Junior Market company. The company’s continued good quarterly results have made the stock undervalued when compared to other companies. We will post our report on the latest quarterly results shortly.

Buy Rated JMMB traded heavy volumes in Jamaica this past week and all shares on offer in the Trinidad market were snapped up in two days as the company posted very strong growth in profit for the first quarter to June. The stocks seems poised to move up in the coming week.

Caribbean Cement rallied sharply in the past week and looks as if it will go further in the coming week. The same applies to its parent Trinidad Cement that has shown 85% increase in value since July 1st with lots of potential based on the TTSE PE Ratio chart.

Better than a broker’s ‘buy’ recommendation, IC Insider has no vested interest in any stock transaction or conflict of interest. Our research is backed by published reports of the company’s performance and insights of future earnings that can be found at ICInsider.com. The final decision to buy, or not, is your personal choice.

To find published reports for a Buy Rated stock on IC Insider, please use category ‘Buy Rated’ under Company News or enter the company name, in full or part at ‘Search IC Insider’.

Filed Under: FX Market, Initial Public Offers, JSE Main Market, Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: JSE Company, TTSE

FX: £ biggest mover, US$ most stable

August 16, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 16th August 2013 | The Pound sterling was the currency with the largest moves on Friday in the Jamaican forex market and the US dollar was the most stable. Authorised dealers purchased the Pound sterling at $1.15 more than they did on Thursday as the buying rate closed at $156.89 with £1.4 million being bought while they sold £761,827 at an average of $158.83 for 30 cents more at the end of the day than the starting rate.

The highest buying rate for the Pound was $159.40 some 10 cents more than the prior day’s close and bought it as low as $128.19 up by 70 cents. The Pound was sold at $2.76 less at $162.50 as the highest selling rate and $2.45 more for the lowest selling rate at $154.50.

The US dollar average rate was up 17 cents buying as dealers bought US$31.2 million at $101.37and sold US$30.3 million for 7 cents more at $101.95 for the average selling rate. But it cost 20 cents more to purchase the US dollar at the highest price of $102.45 and 22 cents more the sell at the highest rate of $107.54, the lowest buying and selling rates remained as the day before at $83.75 buying and $83.67 selling.

The Canadian was costing dealers 89 cents more to buy from the public at $97.39 for C$1.55 million and the sold C$1.37 million at 12 cents more at $98.56. The Canadian dollar was purchased as high as $99 for 10 cents more than the previous day’s closing rate. The lowest buying rate was 8 cents more at $79.51, on the other hand, selling took place as high as $102.51, which was 5 cents cheaper than before and the lowest rate was 30 cents less at $95.80 than on Thursday.

Overall purchases amounted to the equivalent of US$35.36 million US$2.4 million more than the US$32.9 million.

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

JSE: JMMB leads trading

August 16, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 16th August 2013 | There was trading for 6,702,939 units priced at $53,276,771 as 5 stocks increased in price while 8 fell. Jamaica Money Market Brokers was the volume leader with 4,278,813 shares valued at $34.658 million.

JSE All Jamaican Composite closed at 85,330.76 down 561.93 points, the JSE Market Index closed at 85,299.89 a decline of 319.37 points and the Junior Market increased 5.41 to 802.84.

Main Market | Cable & Wireless lost a cent in trading 676,677 units as the stock closed at 17 cents, responding to higher loss in the June results than was generated in the June quarter 2012. Carreras declined further to $48.50 losing 50 cents in trading 26,875 units, reflecting investors’ negative reaction to the June quarter results which had a 41 percent reduction in profits and a cut in the dividend payment. There is little demand in the market currently for the stock.

Grace Kennedy traded 12,200 units at $56 down $1, Jamaica Broilers Group traded 116,150 units at $4.98, Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded a large volume of 4,278,813 as the stock traded at $8.10 with a value of $34.658 million, Jamaica Producers Group traded 25,789 share at $17.52 and lost 73 cents. Kingston Wharves traded 80,000 units at $7.60, National Commercial Bank Jamaica chipped in with 84,588 shares at $18.50 a decline of 54 cents, Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited lent support with 106,833 units closing at $8.50, Scotia Group Jamaica traded a nice volume of 300,734 shares and closed at $21.08, down 42 cents on the day. Scotia Investments traded 10,953 and closed at $26.01, off a $1.99, Proven Investments 8% traded 75,000 units at $5.09.

Junior market | In the junior market just 4 securities traded on the final day of the week, same as yesterday. KLE Group contributed a mere 1,549 as the stock declined by 10 cent to $1.70, Lasco Distributors put in 141,400 units as the stock closed firm at $1.50, Lasco Financial Services contribution was 30,000 units, the stock closed firm at $1.50 and Lasco Manufacturing 103,300 units, closing firm at $1.65. Friday’s trading in the Lasco stocks suggest that profit taking is ending and the way could be paved soon for more gains in the prices of all three companies.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows that bids for 5 stocks was higher than the last selling price with 1 stock having an offer that was lower.