The Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange stayed above the 3,800 mark that it reached on Wednesday but slipped marginally at the close after rising sharply in the morning session, the JSE USD Market bounced during the day, but the Main Market declined sharply for a second day, the fourth day of decline since last week Friday, following increased trading over Wednesday.
At the close of trading, the JSE Combined Market Index dropped 3,572.73 points to 342,592.8, the All Jamaican Composite Index dived 4,628.88 points to 363,894.60, the JSE Main Index plunged 3,811.14 points to 329,820.27, the Junior Market Index dipped 1.81 points to settle at 3,806.88 and the JSE USD Market Index rose 9.27 points to close at 238,86.
Preference shares that are not in the Main Market TOP10 graphs are Eppley 5% preference share, that fell $3 to close at $17, Eppley 7.50% preference share with a fall of $1.28 to close at $6.20, while Jamaica Public Service 7% dipped $14.77 to $63.83 and 138 Student Living preference share dropped $13.99 and ended at $74.
At the close, investors exchanged 19,714,383 shares in all three markets, up from 9,796,640 units on Wednesday, with the value of stocks trading amounting to $161.15 million, down from $58.16 million on Wednesday. Trading on the JSE USD market resulted in investors exchanging 269,277 shares for US$11,912 compared to 757,348 units at US$ 10,500 on Wednesday.
The market’s PE ratio ended at 18.3 on 2022-23 earnings and 11.3 times those for 2023-24 at the close of trading.
Investors need pertinent information to successfully navigate numerous investment options in the local stock market. The ICInsider.com PE ratio chart and the more detailed daily report charts provide investors with regularly updated information to help decision-making.
Investors should use the chart to help make rational decisions when investing in stocks close to the average for the sector and not going too far from it unless there are compelling reasons to do so. This approach helps to remove emotions from investment decisions and put in on fundamentals while at the same time not being too far from the majority of investors. Investors who buy when the price of a stock is close to the average will find that they are not inclined to overpay for a stock.
The ICInsider.com PE ratio chart covers all ordinary shares on the Jamaica Stock Exchange and shows companies grouped on an industry basis, allowing easy comparisons between the same sector companies and the overall market.
The net asset value of each company is reported as a guide to assess the value of stocks based on this measure quickly. The chart also shows daily changes in stock prices and the percentage year to date price movement based on the last traded prices.
Dividends paid or payable and yields for each company are shown in the Main and Junior Markets’ daily report charts, along with the closing volume pertaining to the highest bid and the lowest offer for each company.
The EPS & PE ratios are based on 2021 and 2022 actual or projected earnings, excluding major one off items. The PE Ratio is the most popular measure used to determine the value of stocks.
The Lagoon townhouses Cayman

The Lagoons in Georgetown, Cayman Islands.
The Lagoon townhouse complex in the Cayman Islands, a joint venture development between Proven REIT Limited and Infinity Capital Partners, is slated for completion and delivery of units in early 2023, a spoke person for Infinity Capital Partners advised ICIsider.com.
The complex comprises 13 residential units comprising nine two-bedroom and four three bedrooms townhouses in Georgetown, the capital of the country are all sold.
The units were priced at CI$520,000 for the two-bedroom units and $675,000 for the three-bedroom units. That amounts to US$624,000 and US$810,000. Converted to Jamaica dollar, put prices at JS$960,000 and J$1.247 million. The unit sizes range up to around 1,600 square feet for the three-bedroom units and slightly less for the two-bedroom units.
Cement production surges with big Q1 profit
Three months after Caribbean Cement Company announced its 2020 record cement production of 940,000 metric tons results, approximately 78,000 per month, the company recently reports the production of more than 100,000 metric tonnes of cement in a month in March. It marks the highest monthly production in recent history, the company reported.
“The trend for this quarter is of a higher average than that of the past ten years and is in response to domestic market demand”, a release from the company stated.
In 2020, the company had sales of $20 billion, up 13 percent from $17.8 billion in 2019, with a profit of $3.2 billion, up from $1.9 billion. In the first quarter of 2020, revenues grew by two percent to $4.5 billion, but profit fell to $453 million from $1.1 billion in 2019. In the 2020 first quarter, there was a loss on foreign exchange of $282 million. The company reduced most of its foreign currency exposure. As such there should be minimal exchange losses in the 2021 first quarter.
The company reported sales of $5.77 billion in the September quarter sales were approximately 270,000 tons and in December 2020, quarter sales was around 310,000 resulting in revenues of $6.6 billion.
ICInsider.com estimate revenues to be slightly ahead of the December quarter and has upgraded projections of revenues to $26 billion for 2021 with a net profit of $7.2 billion for EPS of $8.50, up from $6.70 previously.
Cement production is one of many bright spots in the Jamaican economy in 2020 and the current year. The companies shares are listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange and last traded at $73 with a PE of 8.6 times 2021 earnings and a projected stock price of $160 by early 2022.
Banks love Turks & Caicos most
Turks & Caicos Islands is the destination by far, that banks and non-banks are most bullish about, according to data disclosed by the KPMG Carib Tourism 2018 survey.
Following Turks & Caicos, the financiers were bullish on Cayman Islands, then Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda with Bermuda in fifth spot.
“When we looked at which destination in the Caribbean financiers are most bullish about there were 16 different destinations put forward of which only 7 were nominated by both bank and non-banks,” KPMG said. KPMG went on to state,”this further corroborates the position seen in recent years that the financing landscape has changed and that the new landscape involves financiers favoring a small number of jurisdictions for whatever reason rather than financing projects across the entire region”
The survey stated that airlift was the number one factor that considered important followed by ability to recover for hurricanes speedily.
“For banks the second most important issues were the ability to recover from hurricanes (88 percent) and outdated infrastructure (88 percent). Non-banks were unanimous (100 percent) in terms of the importance of crime and the ability to recover from hurricanes.”
Strong appetite for funding hotels
KPMG 2018 Caribbean Tourism survey findings showed a strong appetite by financing new and existing tourism related projects within the Caribbean region.
The findings stated that, “one of the most positive set of results the was in response to a question as to what appetite financiers had for issuing senior debt for different types of tourism related projects in the Caribbean.”
Nearly 90 percent of banks and all nonbank respondents said they had a positive appetite for issuing senior debt to existing hotels for refinancing, expansion and renovation. Approximately 86 percent of non-banks had a positive attitude towards financing acquisitions as did 67 percent of non-banks. Not surprisingly, new builds were a more difficult category to register a positive attitude but 33 percent of banks and 43 percent of non-banks had a positive appetite for new builds. “These are really high percentages, particularly for financing existing hotels and acquisitions. Whereas previously financing applications for new builds were almost dismissed entirely, a sufficient critical mass of financiers are now willing to consider such applications,” KPMG team stated.