Institutions losing out big time in stocks

The Jamaica Stock Exchange Junior Market is growing at more than twice the pace of the Main Market but institutional investors are missing out on the significant superior performance the newer market is delivering, all because institutional investors have not been reading the Junior Market properly, the end results are, pension funds and other investors who utilize institutions to manage their funds have lost out big time on the returns the newer market has provided.
But a host of newer investors are having a whale of a time making good money in the more investor friendly market. These newer investors are mainly interested in Junior Market stocks, two observers disclosed to ICInsider.com. The burst of new investors were attracted to the market by initial public offers of mainly Junior Market stocks, fed on a dose of wildly successful issues that they made great profits from. They are familiar with the market for new issues as they have done extremely well out of them and plan to do so until the situation changes.
In the summer of 2011, just 1,339 applications pumped in $2.4 billion for Caribbean Producers public share issue. Recent issues have attracted over 5,000 applicants, with Spur Tree pulling in excess of 5,000 investors. In 2018 the Fontana IPO attracted 3,406 applications for a total of 982 shares at $2 each. In 2018, Indies Pharma pulled in 2,800 applicants, covering over $1 billion and Wisynco hauled in 7,382 applications totaling $18.8 billion. These are in contrast to the first Junior Market listing Access Financial which struggled to get acceptance at the IPO stage.
A close look at the markets and individual stocks in recent months tends to confirm this view. It is not very surprising then that the Junior Market that has seen a number of new listings in the past three years has attracted sufficient buying interest to send that market up nearly 30 percent last year and up to 33 percent up to recently in 2022, far surpassing Main Market stocks. That performance is not unique to the past two years as the Junior Market outpaced the Main Market in 7 of the last 12 years and delivered more than twice the gains as the Main Market. The Junior Market gained 984 percent from the end of 2010 up to last week with an increase of 119 percent more than the Main Market’s 449 percent.