NCB stock beat Alibaba street and lane
One aspect of successful investment is not to go after every fad that’s out there. Since the US stock market bottomed after the 2007 collapse and started moving up and the FED kept pushing interest rates lower, the rage has been the gains to be made in this market.
But investors ought to note some elements of successful investments. Markets don’t go up or down for ever. The role interest rate plays in market movement don’t seem to be fully appreciated by many. This applies to real estate, stocks and bond investing alike.
Some feel that Jamaican real estate is cheap, because of crime but that is only a fraction of truth. The undervaluation is tied to high interest rates that require a higher rate of return on investment to compensate, hence a lower valuation of properties. The US stock market has been fueled a great deal by super low interest rates, not unlike what happened in the real estate boom prior to the fall in 2007.
When rates start reversing there is going to be some shake out. Rising interest rates and uncertainty drove down stocks value in Jamaica since 2013. Last year Interest rates started to fall and the local stock market started to respond by June last year, slowly at first, but it gradually gathered momentum and by October really started to move up and accumulating in a rise of 36 percent in the main market stocks since.
Jamaica has undergone a very long bear market, possibly the longest in history, having peaked in 2005, but more so since 2009, when the market fell in response to higher local interest rates. It was the sort of market that causes some investors to want to give up. On the other hand the US market gave the impression that one cannot go wrong by investing therein. The chart below tells why one should be careful when entering markets after several years of strong gains and to focus on investing in stocks that are severely undervalued instead. The payout in one, is highly risky and there are huge payoff for investing in undervalued ones. Its will just be a matter of time for the break out to take place.
Around November last year, an investors sold out National Commercial Bank shares to invest in the newest investing fad at the time – Alibaba. At the time Alibaba was around US$100 and NCB was sold around J$17. The chart below tells how wrong the investor was. NCB shot up 79 percent in Jamaican Dollar terms. Dividends payable adds to the 
NCB returns less the effect of devaluation of the Jamaican dollar which still leaves a huge gain. On the other hand, Alibaba is now at US$81 and looks like it may well head lower while NCB is definitely heading higher. the details above indicates that all that glitters is not gold, but it indicates how tough a lesson some investors have to learn to make money.
[…] week to $2.20 now has more than 1 million units on the bid at $2.35, the lowest offer is at $2.70. National Commercial Bank rose $1.01 to $30.02 with 5,710,591 shares trading as high as $32.50 for an intraday 52 weeks’ […]