Stock Market — Page 1161

TTSE: Arbitrage opportunity – Scotia Investments

July 4, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Wednesday, 3rd July 2013 | Scotia Investments traded 131,806 shares for $238,216 on the Trinidad Stock Exchange today, as the stock traded up 3 cents to close at $1.81 or Jamaican value of $28.60 compared to the stock price of $26.25 on the Jamaica Stock Exchange creating an arbitrage situation.

Elsewhere, trading picked up as 17 stocks traded, the most for some time. The end result is that 5 stocks advanced, 2 declined and 10 traded firm.

On the Mutual Fund Market, 1,097 shares changed hands for a value of $5,837. Praetorian Property Mutual Fund was the most active security, with a volume of 990 shares valued at $3,376.

Trading in the main market accounted for 587,979 units valued at $1,725,269 as Trinidad Cement had a volume of 258,135 shares changing hands for a value of $245,228. Sagicor Financial Corporation 93,949 shares with a value of $588,119, National Enterprises had 11,500 shares traded for a value of $182,980. Angostura Holdings chipped in with 4,070 shares with a value of $36,630.

National Commercial Bank Jamaica added 58,152 shares valued at $69,914.

One Caribbean Media Limited closed at a 52 weeks high of $17.40, increasing by 10 cents.

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

West Indian Tobacco Company, which has been on a run from April, is one of the stocks that had a bid above the last selling price.

FX: Rates holding, more or less

July 2, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Tuesday, 2nd July 2013 | The foreign exchange market saw almost equal buying and selling with the selling rate for the US dollar inching up 10 cents for the day to close at $101.44 while the buying rate fell by a cent. Trading in US dollar currency brought in $23.2 million with selling amounting to $22.95 million.

Canadian dollars buying amounted to $805,000 with $760,000 being sold and the buying rate moving up by 32 cents to close at $94.44 and the selling rate ending the day at $96.80, down by just 4 cents. The Pound sterling edged down 7 cents on the buying of £1.26 million and selling took place at an average of £155, up 93 cents on the day,

Highest lowest | There was quite a bit of movement in the highest and lowest traded rates with the US dollar moving up 65 cents for the highest buying rate and 42 cents on the lowest selling rate. The highest buying remained unchanged from Monday but the lowest selling moved up by 41 cents. The Canadian dollar moved up 80 cents for the highest buying rate and 25 cent on the lowest selling rate, while the highest buying slipped 38 cents from Monday and the lowest selling moved up by just 10 cents. The Pound moved down 30 cents for the highest buying rate and up 67 cents on the lowest selling rate while the highest buying rate gained 43 cents from Monday and the lowest selling moved up by 90 cents.

Volume | Total US dollar equivalent bought was $26.6 million with $25.96 being sold.

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

JSE: Junior market hits record high

July 2, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Tuesday, 2nd July 2013 | The junior market that has been on a bull run from April closed today at a new all-time high of 812.02 as the index surpassed the previous all-time high of 811 points that was established on November 9, 2011. This market has gained 25 percent this year rising from 647.78 points as the three Lasco companies posted almost daily new highs since they announced a 10 for 1 stock split and released full year results at the start of June.

The main market broke its losing streak with a rise in the main indices with the all Jamaican Index gaining 951.70 points to close at 88,893.96 ad the Jamaica Stock Exchange index closing at 87,337.26, up 540.59 on the day.

Although all of the indices with stocks trading rose today, the advance decline ratio was just able to remain positive as 9 stocks gained to 6 that declined as trading levels declined sharply from Monday. Trading took place with 2.43 million shares as investors expended only $15.4 million, well down on Monday’s trading. Only one stock, Lasco Distributors, closed with the last traded price reaching an all-time record at the close.

Main Market | Carreras shares hit $56.04 by gaining $3.04 as just 4,430 units valued at $240,815 traded, Grace closed up 35 cents to end the day at $60.35, a mere 1,240 units shifted hands, Sagicor Life traded 563,672 units valued at $5 million as the price moved up 63 cents to close at $9. Scotia Group traded 147,000 units, valued at $3.1 million and gained one cent in the process. Scotia Investment lost $1.40 in closing at $26.10 with 10,100 shares.

Like Monday, the supply of Cable & Wireless on offer at 15 cents fell a bit more to 29.4 million shares with 557,000 units trading at 14 cents. The bid to buy 4.79 million RJR shares still stands at $1.23 with no supply at hand.

Junior market | Seven junior market stocks traded with Lasco Financial at $12.10, down 60 cents, with 170,000 shares trading between $12.10 and $13. Lasco Manufacturing traded 5,000 shares with the price closing at $16. Lasco Distributors, closed at $18 but only 3,200 units traded between $16.50 and $18. General Accident traded 399,554 shares and the price closed at $2 and Caribbean Producers closed at $2.02 in trading 240,606 units. Blue Power closed at $10.40, down 60 cents, with 37,283 units but there were offers amounting to 332,000 units at $10.40 to $10.50 at the end of trading.

The junior market is in a golden cross as the 50-day and 120-day moving averages trend-lines have crossed over the 200-day moving average. This is a strong market signal for a major move in the months ahead.

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 3 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

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

TTSE: Witco drops back by $3

July 2, 2013 by IC Insider.com

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Tuesday, 2nd July 2013 | The West Indian Tobacco Company stock that reached a new all-time high yesterday after making several other highs in recent past months, lost the $3 it gained in yesterday’s trading with only 210 units sold.

Market activity resulted in 13 securities trading of which 2 advanced, 2 declined and 9 traded firm with trading in the main market accounting for 210,003 units valued at only $286,299. JMMB dominated the trading volume with 121,356 shares for a value of $60,678. The share price of JMMB is relatively small compared to most of the listed companies shares, hence the value traded was far less than Monday’s $1,004,310 while Clico Investment Fund, traded just213 shares valued at $4,899 in the mutual fund segment. Trinidad Cement had a volume of 76,059 shares changing hands for a value of $72,256. Sagicor Financial Corporation 5,825 shares with a value of $36,686, National Enterprises had 11,500 shares traded for a value of $182,980. Angostura Holdings chipped in with 4,070 shares with a value of $36,630.

IC indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer sentiment indicator shows that bids for 4 stocks were higher with 3 stocks that had offers lower than their last selling price.

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

Stocks to watch: week of 1st July, 2013

July 1, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Keep an eye on these stocks for movement | There aren’t many changes to this week’s posting compared to last weeks’. We added two new ones in the junior market as the Lasco companies gain interest from the approved stock split of 10 for 1 and one for the TTSE.

Filed Under: Company News, JSE Main Market, Stock Market, Stocks to watch, TTSE Market Tagged With: JSE Company, Trading Activity, TTSE

FX: More buying than selling again

July 1, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Monday, 1st July 2013 | As was the case on Friday, authorised dealers bought much more foreign exchange than they sold. Unlike Friday, when the excess buying over sales is an unusual occurrence, today’s trades are in line with the long term market trend where Mondays are usually the highest day for inflows as week-end flows are sold into the financial system.

The total amount of purchases on Monday amounted to US$41.6 million, more than $9 million over Friday’s purchases of US$32.2 million and the amount sold amounted to US$33 million, $8.6 million more than Friday’s US$24.5 million. While the actual selling of US currency was $7.4 million less than purchases of $38.26 million.

The selling rate for the US dollar inched down by just 4 cents and the buying rate went up by 7 cents. There was also more buying of Pound Sterling and the Canadian dollars than the amounts sold to end users.

The average selling rate for the Canadian dollar gained 14 cents while the buying rate fell $1.43. The rate for buying the Pound, which fell $1.18 on Friday, declined further by $1.21 to close at $151.54 and was down only 40 cents on the selling rate which ended at $154.07.

There were no changes for the minimum buying rates for any of the currencies, while the highest buying rates moved up by 10 cents for the Canadian dollar and also went up for the selling rates with the highest climbing 70 cents and the lowest by 20 cents. The highest buying rate for the US dollar moved down by 15 cents as the highest selling rate moved up 53 cents with no change for the lowest selling rate. The Pound declined for the highest buying rate which fell by $1.50 and the highest selling rate moved down by $1.12 and 10 cents for the lowest selling rate.

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

JSE: Advancing & declining stocks in a battle

July 1, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Monday, 1st July 2013 | While the junior market index continues to advance towards the all-time high of 811 points, the main market indices fell moderately as investors try to find acceptable prices to execute trades.

Based on the recent rise in the prices of many stocks, it’s hard to see how this stalemate will change in the short term without new information to entice investors to view stocks as attractive to acquire now, rather than later. Although the majority of the indices fell today, the advance decline ratio was just able to remain positive as 8 stocks gained to 7 that declined. Trading levels of 4.7 million shares was half of Friday’s, but even less was expended as only $38 million traded compared to $116.17 million invested on Friday. Three stocks closed with the last selling price reaching an all-time record. These are Blue Power at $11, Lasco Distributors at $16 and Lasco manufacturing at $16.

Carreras shares gained 27 cents to $52 as just 9,096 units valued at $482,000 traded, JMMB closed up 50 cents as Scotia Investment bought the bulk of the 1,093 million units that traded, with the stock closing at $8.50. Active offers for JMMB is now at $9.25 an indication that the supply at recent market prices is drying up, but investors may well sell below this price as there is a big gap between bids of $7.72 and offers prices. Sagicor Life traded 248,000 units valued at $2 million as the price slipped back by 18 cents. Scotia Group traded 176,000 units, valued at $3.7 million and lost 31 cents in the process.

The supply of Cable & Wireless share on offer at 15 cents fell below the 30 million mark at the end of trading as the amount offered is now at 29.88 million units. RJR has a bid of $1.23 to buy 4.79 million shares as this stock has had a fair volume of trading recently.

Junior market | Eight junior market stocks traded as Lasco Financial, continuing to respond to the 10 to 1 stock split, closed at $12.70 down 30 cents on Friday’s last traded price with 101,185 shares trading between $12.60 and $13. Lasco Manufacturing also responding to the announced stock split, traded over 736,000 shares, closing at $16 up by 40 cents with $11.66 million invested, while Lasco Distributors closed at $16 after trading at a record high of $16.50 with only 206,408 units valued at $3.37 million trading. Caribbean Cream traded down 15 cents to close at $1.05 with 350,000 units changing hands. Blue Power closed at $11 up $1 on the last selling price with 38,000 units but the offer was for 303,000 units at $10.50 at the end of trading. AMG packaging traded 27,800 shares at $4.20.

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 1 stock having an offer lower than the last selling price.

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

TTSE: Witco all the rage, up $3

July 1, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Monday, 1st July 2013 | The West Indian Tobacco Company marked a new all-time high, increasing by $3 to end the day at $120 as it traded 1,861 units between $117 and $120 the last traded price. Scotiabank declined by $0.21 to close at $69.75 while trading 3,600 shares valued at $251,100.

Overall market activity resulted in 10 securities trading of which 2 advanced, 4 declined and 4 traded firm.

Trading in the main Market took place in 193,120 units valued at $1,004,310 and Clico Investment Fund traded 165,350 shares valued at $3,802,530 in the mutual fund segment. Trinidad Cement had a volume of 169,589 shares changing hands for a value of $161,110, followed by National Enterprises with a volume of 11,500 shares being traded for $182,980. Guardian Holdings contributed 4,750 shares to the level of trading with a value of $76,000.

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

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

$2.85 for JSE shares, is it worth it?

July 1, 2013 by IC Insider.com

The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) prospectus to raise $107,865,000 is now released to the public for consideration with the issue scheduled to open at 9:00 am, Friday 5^th July 2013. The Invitation is scheduled to close at 4:00 pm, Friday 19th July, subject to the right of the Company to close the Invitation at any time after it opens. The total amount of shares being made available will be 38.25 million units comprising 28 million being issued directly by the Jamaica Stock Exchange and 10.2 million by JMMB. JMMB is selling the shares they acquired when they took over the Capital Group, which put their holding at 18.18 percent, well above the threshold of 10 percent any one investor is allowed to hold as stipulated by the JSE articles.

The issue price | IC Insider computes that the stock carries a value around 10 times 2013 earnings, based on the assumption that trading activity continues for the rest of the year at the rate experienced in June. For the 12 months to December last year, profit of $93 million was reported but that figure included revenue from the sale of a board seat to Proven Wealth Management for $60 million, as well as large fee income from the purchase of Lascelles’ shares that were acquired by Campari last year and to a lesser degree the shares traded when Capital & Credit was acquired.

Existing capital | There are currently 112,200,000 (formerly 28 million) ordinary shares in issue and the new shares will bring the issued capital to 140 million units. The shares have a book value of $5.52 but earnings per share based on 2012 profit will be just over $0.83 and that figure is inflated by the non-recurring income mentioned above.

Profit after tax amounted to $5.8 million compared to a loss of $6.1 million in 2012. For the quarter ending March, the JSE’s income rose 8 percent to reach $69.5m compared to $64.4m in 2012. Other Operating Income increased by $5.5m or 32% over the same period, primarily due to an increase of $5.3 million in revenue from the JSE regional conference. Investment income of $22 million jumped $14 million over 2012 due largely to the gains on US dollar investments as a result of devaluation of the Jamaican dollar.

Positives | The number of shares to be issued is relative small but shareholding is limited to 10 percent of issued shares. The preference shares which was a debt instrument was repaid and these funds replace the amounts paid out. The stock market is not at its most buoyant but with interest rates having declined below ten percent and government slashing the fiscal deficit, rates could go lower. This development ultimately makes stock market investments more attractive and drive up trading volumes and therefore fee income for the exchange. The stock exchange plans for more instruments to be traded on the exchange but there are no imminent new listings that are known. The stock exchange is showing signs of greater activity this year but it has not reached a level to ensure that the JSE makes an operating profit. The JSE will benefit from listing fee income if the value of shares rise, as the annual listing fees are tied to the value of each company’s shares that are outstanding at the start of each year.

Negatives | The number of shares to be issued will not ensure a good level of liquidity for the stock, which will keep bigger investors away. There are no rules preventing existing shareholders from selling their holdings in partially or in full thus increasing the volume that could become available to the wider public. Short term profit prospects are not exciting suggesting that the stock is not very attractively priced relative to the rest of the market. The company has an oversized board of 19, resulting in an unnecessary waste of funds and an unwieldy structure that makes it more difficult to properly run board meetings and by extension, the company.

Revenues | The Company derives its revenue from a range of sources including the JSE cess, calculated on the value of each market transaction, fees charged for listing companies at the initial stage, annually, as well as any supplementary listings, membership, transactions, the registrar and trustee fees paid to its subsidiary company JCSD, amongst others, income generated from the provision of conferences, seminars and the e-Campus. The JSE has recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bank of Jamaica to work towards the development of a fixed income trading platform for Government of Jamaica securities and corporate bonds. It is also conducting research into the development of exchange-traded products and other exchange-related products.

In summary | Stock markets are cyclical in nature resulting in peaks and troughs in earnings flowing from bull and bear markets. At this juncture, the market is in the process of moving into a bull market. Investors who buy the shares now are essentially buying at the lower end of the market. The levels of trading currently are a fraction of what they have been in the past, so the potential is huge going forward. The change in interest rates and the focus of government on controlling the fiscal deficit will ultimately have a huge impact on the fortunes of the stock exchange. Investors should not be looking for any big pay day any time soon from this stock.

Filed Under: Company News, General Business News, Initial Public Offers, JSE Main Market, Stock Market Tagged With: JSE Company

What’s BOJ up to in FX & money market?

July 1, 2013 by IC Insider.com

In Friday’s foreign exchange trading, authorised dealers bought much more foreign exchange than they sold and in a late after hours release, Jamaica’s central bank again decided to mop up more local funds from the financial system.

The timing of the release isn’t isolated from the developments in the foreign exchange market. It seems that the CD issue is linked to what the central bank may consider to be holding of a long position in US dollar by financial institutions. According to the release from the bank, the issues are “to augment its liquidity management operations, the Bank of Jamaica will be offering two variable rate instruments commencing Monday, 01 July 2013 to Thursday, 04 July 2013. The release comes against the back drop of the day’s trading when authorised dealers bought more than US$32 million and sold only US$24.5 million with the rate for the US dollar hardly trading.

The instruments being offered are:

Variable Rate Certificate of Deposit 2013(D) which was originally issued on 12 June 2013 and is now being re-opened for a limited nominal amount of $2.0 billion. The tenor for the re-opened instrument is 164-days. This instrument maintains the original issue terms, viz, the initial coupon is 6.77 per cent per annum up to the first interest payment date on 12 September 2013 and re-prices quarterly at 0.15 percentage point above the three month GOJ Treasury Bill rate for the next interest payment date up to the maturity date on 12 December 2013.
A 365-day Certificate of Deposit, for an unlimited amount. The instrument re-prices quarterly at 0.23 percentage point above the three month GOJ Treasury Bill rate existing at the start of each re-pricing period. The initial coupon for the first three months is 6.99 per cent per annum.

These offers are extended to all Primary Dealers and commercial banks, from 01 July 2013 to 04 July 2013. The term sheets for these Certificates of Deposit will be circulated via electronic mail to all Primary Dealers and commercial banks.

The Bank says they will continue to offer its regular 30-day Certificate of Deposit at the current interest rate of 5.75 per cent per annum.

This is the third CD offering within a month and is in conflict with the view that the government wants the rate of the Jamaican dollar to fall as well as utterances from government’s spokesmen that the continuing devaluation is to ensure that the country has a competitive exchange rate. The measures are meant to tighten liquidity which means that there will be less Jamaican dollars available to purchase foreign exchange thus resulting in either stability in the exchange rate or a revaluation of the currency.

Read more about the BOJ’s intervention in the FX market, Market demand is not driving J$, BOJ is click here.