Friday, 5th July 2013 | The junior market closed at a new all-time high at 823.39 points up 13. The fireworks that was expected in the trading of the Lasco shares did not materialise as investors could not trade in shares with a record date of July 9th since the central depository did not make the switch over to the new number of shares. In the end, investors could not trade more than the number of shares they previously held. What little trading that took place left Lasco Distributors at $1.80 up by 17.25 cents over Thursday’s price as 54,400 shares traded at $1.80, Lasco Financial traded 30,000 shares at $1.30, a gain of 10 cents or the equivalent to $1 based on the old price.
In Friday’s activity, 25 stocks traded valued at $49.1 million, more than twice Thursday’s trade of $22.35 million. The advance decline ratio remained tilted in favour of declining stocks with 9 declining and 8 advancing as all the indices moved up sharply with the exception of the US dollar index which declined marginally and the cross listed that had no trades.
Main Market | The all Jamaica Index leapt 1,611.32 points to close at 90,572 and the JSE market index by 915.26 to close at 88,276.46 . Trades of note include Scotia Group, the dominant stock of the day, with 786,000 shares trading between $21.11 and $24. Scotia Investment, the broker, crossed shares at the higher prices with the stock closing up 85 cents. Carreras traded 6,500 shares between $55 and $56, the stock closed at 55 off $1. Grace Kennedy lost 50 cents to close at $59.50 on limited volume. Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded down 47 cents to close at $8 while trading 156,200
Jamaica Producers climbed to $20 up 50 but only 3,200 shares trading. Sagicor Life lost 57 cents to close at $8.43 while trading 34,554 shares, Scotia Investments did not trade but the price in Trinidad moved up to $29.20 in today’s trading, nearly a 10 percent difference to the local price of $26.50.
Junior market | 8 stocks in the junior market traded. Blue Power traded 1,147 shares and dropped $1.22 to $9.18, Dolphin Cove closed down 15 cents to $8.35 on very low volume, and the only other trade of note was Access Financial Services 13,269 shares at $8.25.
Proven Investment Preference shares traded 3.935 million units valued at $19.83 million while the ordinary shares, which are quoted in US dollars traded 457,725 at a value of US$51,972. The stock lost a fraction of a cent to close at 11.35 US cents.
Market intelligence | Cable & Wireless remains under pressure with offers in excess of 30 million shares at 15 cents and few bids in the market to support the volume at that price. The demand for the stock has not changed much since Thursday. RJR still has a bid of $1.23 to buy 4.79 million shares, the lowest offer seems small at $1.30 at close. Bids seem to be building for Carreras as the offers taper off. Mayberry Investments still has an order to sell 1 million units at $5.18 which is preventing the stock from moving up. At the same time, there are still two bids for 500,000 units each at $4.67 as the only visible major bids. Grace Kennedy still has 700,000 units on offer at $61. The tightness in the bids and offers in Jamaica Producers remains. The strongest bid on Scotia Investments remains at $26 for 221,000 but an offer of 6 million units at $30 may act as a short term barrier on the upside.
IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer market sentiment indicator shows that bids for 4 stocks were higher with 2 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.
