Amazingly, while the JSE main market has been recording several record highs this year and the Junior market is up more than 10 percent for the year, the US dollar market has gone in the opposite direction.
The US dollar based market index is at its lowest level since February 2010 and also at levels not seen since mid-2016, with the index closing at 139.56 on Tuesday this week.
In February 2017, Margaritaville hit a high of 37 US cents and Proven Investments reached a high of 32 US cents, both have been sliding since, and hitting a 52 weeks’ low of 15 cents recently. Interestingly, Proven, the darling of many investors in the past, had very little buying interest in recent times. Margaritaville trades at 15 US cents and have lost 60 percent from the high and Proven has fallen 53 percent. Margaritaville suffered last year from dislocation that two hurricanes had on Turks and Caicos Islands and by extension on its operations while Proven picked up losses from the revaluation of the Jamaican dollar, but should recover from it, for the current year. In addition, the company raised capital by way of a rights issue that has not been put to work to avoid a dilution in returns on investment. With the fall in the price of Proven the stock is now IC Insider.com’ TOP 10 buy listed. At the same time, that the US issue has fallen the Proven Jamaica dollar listing still has a bid for 1,830 units at J$26.50 or almost 20 US cents.
Also dragging down the market is Sterling Investments US dollar listing that have fallen from 12 US cents to 8.55 US cents.
For the fiscal year to March, Proven reported US$5.68 million or 0.94 cents per share for shareholders versus $8.85 million in 2017. 
$8 million of the 2017 earnings was non-recurring, coming from gain on acquisition of a subsidiary. Importantly, the company suffered from the revaluation of the Jamaican dollar in the last half of the fiscal year, resulting in a loss of $444,000 but resulted in a $3.3 million turn from gains of $2.9 million in 2017. Even without the benefit of foreign exchange gains profit from ongoing operations was up nearly 100 percent from $6.6 million to $12.6 million for the year. The first quarter results that are expected to be released next week should show recovery from the FX losses. “All our segments are doing well and this year should be our best ever” Christopher Williams, President of the Company told IC Insider.com. “We await regulatory approval for the investment brokerage company in the Cayman Island,” Williams stated.
Margaritaville reported a loss of US$88.5 thousand in the February quarter, from revenues of US$1.8 million and US$4.06 million for the nine months period that delivered profit of $147,324 versus $339,122 in 2017.
Collapse of the JSE US market
July 19, 2018 by
