Wednesday, 2nd October, 2013 | The main market indices climbed on Wednesday, the third such increase in as many days. Will these gains hold? The all Jamaica Index closed up 489.46 to 85,828.92, the JSE index closed at 85,328.52 for an increase of 278.18 and the junior market was down 4.72 to 769.32.
Scotia Group accounted for the bulk of the increase as the stock traded as high as $22.99 during the day but closed at $21.30 at the end of trading with 718,222 units. On a day when 4 stocks advanced and 8 declined there was trading in 4,123,904 with a value of $51,473,251.
Main Market | Cable & Wireless traded 525,000 to close at 18 cents. Carreras got hit again as news broke that sales are down 25 percent after the smoking ban was introduced, but investors failed to note that the figures represented an improvement over the 30 percent drop in the period prior to the ban due to overstocking by traders who made purchases to beat a price increase earlier in the year. The stock traded 8,031 units, helping to pull the closing price down to $43, a $3.61 fall. Gleaner Company had a small trade of 40,320 shares and closed firm at $1.21; Grace Kennedy closed up 50 cents to $56.50 with 81,795 units; Jamaica Broilers 31,404 units help the price to close at $4.79, costing it a cent from Tuesday’s close; Kingston Wharves exchanged 23,144 to close a cent up at $6.02; Mayberry Investments 59,519 units traded firm at $2.60; National Commercial Bank traded 329,585 and closed unchanged at $19; Pan Jamaican Investment 23,798 units traded firm at $50; Sagicor Life 115,633 units helped in adding 4 cents to the price to close at $9.05; Seprod traded 1,399,582 shares to close at $14, down 50 cents.
Juniors | Trading in the junior market was sparse as Caribbean Producers had a volume of 152,977 units trading to close at $2.08; Lasco Distributors had just 12,582 units and closed firm at $1.46; Lasco Financial Services had 201,720 units in closing unchanged at $1.21 and Lasco Manufacturing traded 336,000 to close firm at $1.55.
IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed the market consolidating with bids for 3 stocks being higher and 5 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.
