Historically, July has been the month when the local stock market starts to look up. It is also the time of year when investors tend to be on holidays, thus reducing market activity. Additionally, we need to bear in mind that companies will start to release second quarter results which could move prices. Hence, what may be reflected by the movement in stock prices and market indices may be deceptive when gleaning market sentiments.
In dominoes they say that “a peep is better than a read” and this applies to the stock market as well, especially in the short run. Taking a “peep” behind the scenes, we see many cases where the supply of stocks has declined sharply. In several cases there is really no serious supply near to current prices to meet any increase in demand without prices rising sharply. We read that as a bullish signal coming from the market at this time.
Demand & supply | There are 7 serious buyers for Blue Power between $9.18 and 10.02 with a total demand of 84,000 shares and there are two sellers with 100,000 on offer at $10.50 and 10,000 at $13. AMG Packaging is in demand at $4.25 but there is virtually no current supply. Caribbean Cream has no demand currently but supply starts at $1.15 with 100,000 units. Dolphin Cove has virtually no supply currently with less than 20,000 units on offer. Jamaican Teas supply is very low with two sellers offering 55,000 units at $5.50 and demand is rising. Lasco Distributors, which should be releasing its first quarter results on the 29th of July along with the other two companies, has demand at $1.40 but the supply is at $1.60 up to $1.80. Lasco Financial has no active supply while the demand seems to have pulled back somewhat. Lasco Manufacturing with demand at $1.65 has no supply at the end of trading. Paramount Trading has had no supply for several days.
Cable & Wireless still has good supply at 15 cents with nearly 29 million units without any serious demand coming in to meet it. The sellers seem content to allow small buying to nimble away at the supply at 14 or 15 cents. Grace remains under pressure as demand is at $50, but in limited quantity as most of whatever demand is there is around $40. Carreras has slipped sharply from its recent highs and while there is quite some demand around $50-52 buyers, have been pulling back as supply continues to push prices lower. Troubled Caribbean Cement came in for demand this week and supply has receded and is now above $2. Desnoes and Geddes has buying at $4.65- 4.70 and supply at $5.18 but there are not a lot of sellers. Selling in Jamaica Broilers is moderate but buying is not aggressive. JMMB has demand at $8 but supply is way up at $8.80 but there is not much until $10.50. Jamaica Producers has very limited supply currently. Mayberry’s selling is not heavy but demand is just from Mayberry, with no other bid in place, which has been the case for several days.
National Commercial Bank has good buying for the stock between $18.50-19 and selling is very light. Selling for Pan Jam is very light. Radio Jamaica has buying for 4.7 million shares with the closing bid at $1.23. Sagicor Life has buying around $9 but sellers are at a much higher prices. Scotia Group has good demand around $21 but sellers are much higher for the time being. Scotia Investments has some demand at $26 but mostly from one buyer with a seller supply at $30. Seprod has neither, much demand or supply, in the market and Supreme Ventures has virtually no supply.
We’ll be watching how JSE trading unfolds over the upcoming weeks starting with the Stocks to Watch as of Monday, 22nd July 2013.
[…] we see many instances where there’s a limited supply of stocks. Want to know more about the current demand and supply in the JSE? Read our market report Demand and supply tug of […]