JSE recovers in mid-morning
In early trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange market indices are up with the all Jamaica Composite Index rising 1,053.80 points to 156,186.37 at 11 am on Monday morning. The JSE Market Index increased by 942.95 points to 140,690.96, the JSE combined index rose 908.14 points to be at 147,456.72 and the junior market index gained 5.08 points to 1,640.72.
Trading volumes have been low with 90 minutes of the market opening. Cable & Wireless traded the most with 464,269 units and last traded at $1.52, C2W Music with 217,500 at 39 cents. Jamaica Producers gained $3.50 with 6,174 to be at $30.
The number of securities trading climbed sharply to 32 securities changing hands with a volume of 1,647,597 units as 12 stocks gained and 7 declined after 90 minutes of trading.
Juniors closed with 231m shares trading
Trading finished with 15 active securities, 9 of which advanced and 3 declined. A total of 230,905,691 units, valued at $3,683,900,704 changed hands. The market ended with 6 stocks closing at new 52 weeks’ high.
Only 2 securities ended with no bids to buy and 9 had no stocks being offered for sale. A total of 7 stocks closed with bids higher than the last traded prices and 2 closed with lower offers.
In trading, AMG Packaging ended with 16,678 shares trading at a 52 weeks’ high of $5.60, with a gain of 55 cents. Caribbean Cream traded 39,775 units at a new high of $5 after adding 40 cents, Blue Power traded 850 units at $13.10, C2W Music traded 102,917 units at 39 cents, Caribbean Flavours traded 119,705 units to end at for a new 52 weeks’ high of $6.06 after rising $1.06. Caribbean Producers closed with a gain of 40 cents in trading 212,597 units at $4.85, for a new 52 weeks’ closing high but the stock traded as high as $5.10. Investors pushed Consolidated Bakeries down by 11 cents at the close, to end at $1.54 with 12,856 units changing hands. Derrimon Trading ended with 24,210 units changing hands at $3.50, Dolphin Cove with 229,748,218 units trading ended at a new high of $16.03 but it closed with a rise of $2.10 at $15.80 after the company changed majority ownership to Dolphin Mexico. Honey Bun with 20,123 shares changing hands, closed lower by 20 cents at $5.30, KLE Group gained 14 cents and ended with 19,912 units trading at 96 cents, Lasco Distributors closed with 155,536 shares changing hands to end at $4.15 after slipping 23 cents. Lasco Financial ended rose 10 cents to $3.50, with a total of 262,814 shares changing hands, Lasco Manufacturing closed at $3.76 with 158,500 shares trading and Medical Disposables ended with 11,000 shares changing hands and gained of $3.40.
KLE and C2W Music burnt up cash
Junior market entertainment companies, KLE Group and C2W Music continue to burn cash with relatively large losses in the in the quarter and six months to June with one having shredded shareholders capital and the other on the edge of doing so.
C2W Music reported revenues of just US$4,976 in the June quarter and US$6,028 for the half year but cost rose in the quarter over that of 2014 with US$16,000 versus $12,193 and for the half year US$28,866 versus US$93,605. Finance cost ended at US$1,381 for the quarter and US$2,762 for the year to June. The company reported a loss of US$12,297 and for the six months and US$25,649 in 2014.
The cash burn for the company has virtually wiped out the share capital with only US$17,402 left out of US$1,286,619 raised when it went public, forcing them to seek loan funding which amounted to US$80,950 at June. The results are well off track from what investors were promised when the company had its IPO.
Over at KLE Group the focus is said to be on cost containment and the launching of franchising of the Tracks and Records concept as well as some new income stream.
For the quarter to June revenues amounts to $54 million with a loss of$12.85 million versus $8.3 million in 2014. For the six months, revenues was $103 million compared with $128 million with losses of $34.6 million and $20.9 million in 2014.
The company has burn through all the equity is raised and more and ended up with negative equity of $10.56 million at June and borrowings of $99 million. While borrowings have grown and payables have fallen from $116 million in June 2014 to $84 million, the composition of the amount tells the story of a company with serious challenges, with GCT due of $7.34 million versus just $146,000 in 2014 and Statutory payables of $10.7 million up from $2.3 million in June 2014 and credit card payables of $9.8 million, at the end of last year June the amount was at $7.2 million.
The lack of capital is driving the nail in the coffins of both companies as revenues are just not there at least currently, to allow for survival.