Huge jump in trading at Jamaica Stock Exchange

Trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange climbed sharply for the first two months and three days of 2022, well above the similar period last year with both the Main and Junior markets showing strong increases in volumes and value of trading.
In 2021, the Junior Market traded 422 million shares in the first two months valued at just over $1 billion that climbed to 137 percent to 577 million shares valued 212 percent higher at $2.17 billion but trading for the first three days of March is up a strong 543 percent over the similar period in 2021.
Main Market trading climbed 111 percent in volume and 184 percent in value to 712.7 million units at $6.35 billion up from 641.8 million units valued at $3.46 billion.  For the first three days of March, the value of stocks traded on the Main Market is $1.765 billion and is up a stunning 674 percent for the same period in 2021. March dollar value trading is 48 percent of this year’s February and the value of Junior Market trading for the first three days of March amounts to $426 million or 36 percent of the value of stocks traded for February this year.
Not only are the numbers for March so far are now at 65 percent of the entire value traded in March 2021 in the Main Market, with the Junior Market at 36 percent of the $1 billion traded for March 2021.
The trend if continued is positive for the two main stock exchange markets and suggest a big rise in stock price and a big jump in revenues and profits at Jamaica Stock Exchange that generated income of 1.93 billion last year up just 12.6 percent from $1.71 earned in 2020 and profit of $497 million up 22 percent over the $407 million earned in 2020 after tax as the company held cost to $1.24 billion up 8.7 percent above $1.14 billion in 2020. Taxation ate into the profits, taking $244 million compared to $212 million in 2020. The company reported 71 cents per share for 2021 but this seems set to explode sharply higher in 2022 if the above trading trends continue.
The company remains in a very healthy financial position with current assets ending the year at $881 million and current liabilities of $235 million and generating cash inflows of $777 million for the year. The JSE ended with shareholders’ equity of $1.9 billion in 2021 up from $1.5 billion in 2020.
The JSE is not only benefitting from increased trading for 2022 but will be seeing new listings during the year that will provide added income and profits for them.
The stock traded at $16.95 on Friday at a PE ratio of 24 but the PE seems poised to fall sharply for 2022 with the strong growth in revenues from existing business as well as a result of new listings, accordingly, ICInsider.com places an ICBUY RATED approval on the stock.