Tuesday, 15th October 2013 | The Junior Market’s newly listed Caribbean Flavours & Fragrances, saw 1,158,788 units trading up to $2.88, an increase of 30 cents as Mayberry Investments, the broker for the initial public offering, crossing the vast majority of the shares to trade.

Trading resulted in 8,503,678 units changing hands valued at $42,733,465. There were 7 stocks advancing to 7 declining. The junior market index declined 7.05 to close at 747.32. Declines were moderate in the main market with the JSE main index going down 197.24 to 83,036.36 and the all Jamaica index falling by 347.04 to 81,795.87.

Main Market | Investors picked up 97,032 units of Carreras unchanged at $39, down $2 for the day, as it closed at a new 52 weeks low. Grace Kennedy traded only 1,400 units to close up 49 cents, at $57, still well off the price in Trinidad at the equivalent of $66.40. Mayberry Investments snapped up nearly 1.8 million units of the 1,947,082 Jamaica Broilers shares for their own account, as the stock closed at $4.55, up 5 cents at the end of trading, with NCB Capital Market selling all but 4,000 units on behalf of clients. Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded 200,000 shares to close up 10 cents at $8.10, well below the J$10 equivalent it is trading for in Trinidad today. National Commercial Bank dropped to $17.01 at the end of trading down by $1.49 on 545,939 shares, the largest portion, 499,741 units was a cross at $17.60 by  First Global Financial Services. Sagicor Life traded 143,150 units, closing at $8.94, up 43 cents while Scotia Group exchanged 29,725 units, down 5 cents at $20.30; Seprod traded 150,000 units firm at $13; Jamaica Money Market Brokers 7.5% preference shares traded 474,816 units firm at $2; the 8.75% preference shares traded 316,239 units firm at $3. Proven Investments Limited 8% preference share traded 200,000 units firm at $5.09.

Junior market | Elsewhere in the Junior market, companies seem to be marking time with small volumes, except for today’s trading in Caribbean Flavours stock. AMG Packaging traded 10,000 firm at $4; Caribbean Producers traded 2,707,019 firm at $2.08; Lasco Distributors saw 89,000 units trading firm at $1.45; Lasco Financial Services traded 17,564 units firm at $1.20 and Lasco Manufacturing traded 96,800 units and closed down 5 cents at $1.45.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed the market with fluidity in price movements either way, with bid for 7 stocks being higher and 6 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.

Company results | Paramount Trading disclosed increased profits for the 3 months to August amounting to $19 million before tax compared to $10.7 million in 2012, up 78 percent. In the previous year 2012, after tax amounted to $8 million, Sales climbed 11 percent from $152 million to $169 million in the quarter. Helping with the increased profit was an improvement in gross profit margin, which rose from 29.6 percent to 31.3 percent and the holding of administrative and other cost to only a 7 percent increase. See our post for more details!

Monday, 14th October 2013 | The first trading day of the week saw the minor stocks dominating the main market volume as Cable & Wireless with 1,484,204 at 17 cents, down a cent; Caribbean Cement with 3,314,249 closing at $2.20, up 20 cents and Radio Jamaica with 3,166,688 units, closing at $1.32 were the dominant trades.

Trading resulted in 11,011,030 units changing hands valued at $23,764,695. There were 11 stocks advancing to 5 declining but only the junior market index moved up 7.25 to close at 754.37. Declines were moderate in the main market with the JSE main index going down 94.68 to 83,233.60 and the all Jamaica index falling off by 166.60 to 82,142.91.

Carreras investors picked up 23,449 units unchanged at $41; First Caribbean International Bank traded 3,224 units to close firm at $100; Grace Kennedy traded 3,180 units to close up a cent, at $56.51 while it traded in Trinidad at the equivalent of $66.40. Investors snapped up 203,759 units of Hardware & Lumber at $4.50 up by 5 cents; Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded 99,289 shares to close firm at $8.00, well below the J$9.60 equivalent it is trading for in Trinidad. Mayberry Investments saw 28,160 units changing hands, unchanged at $2.60; National Commercial Bank traded 65,465 shares to close up 25 cents at $18.50; Sagicor Life traded 18,668 units, closing at $8.51, down 9 cents while Scotia Investments exchanged 117,950 units firm at $26.50 and Jamaica Money Market Brokers 8.75% preference shares traded 100,000 units firm at $3.

Junior market | The junior market welcomed its 19 listing as Caribbean Flavours & Fragrances, the newcomer saw 86,420 units trading up to $2.58, an increase of 33 cents on the IPO price of $2.25. Lasco Distributors 1,186,462 units traded firm at $1.45 at the end; Lasco Manufacturing traded 949,326 units and closed up 5 cents at $1.50; investors landed 29,624 Paramount Trading shares at $3.05, up 5 cents.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed the market with a slight negative bias with bid for 1 stock being higher and 5 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.

Company results | Caribbean Cream disclosed increased profits for the six months to August amounting to $17.6 million before tax compared to $15.9 million in 2012 and after tax $14.6 million versus $9.4 million, as sales climbed from $307 million to $422 million. The problem is that the company’s earnings per share computation is now properly computed and the taxation included appear to be overstated. Administrative and other cost are up just over 50 percent to $71 million while profit margin declined as the company states that they absorbed cost increases resulting from the devaluation of the local currency.

Friday, 11 October 2013 | Stock market investors in Jamaica must have breathed a sigh of relief when the end of the week came and ended a relatively painful 6 straight days of decline in the main and junior markets. Friday’s trades brought a ray of hope that things were not all lost, as the one stock, Carreras, that helped to pull the main market indices down, enjoyed some respite on Friday by climbing to $41 from $39 on Thursday. Friday was also another big trading day as two large trades helped push the volume up with 13,896,728 units valued at $282,533,917 trading in the market.

The JSE main index closed at 83,328.28, an increase of 394.03, the all Jamaica Index climbed to 82,309.51 up by 693.30 and the junior market was up by 6.25 to 747.12.

Main market | Carreras managed to put through 45,754 units as the price closed at $41 up $1.99. There appears to be a little more buying interest for the stock with Mayberry on the bid to buy for in-house purposes. The next bids below are at $36 from NCB Capital Markets for in-house purposes. These may lend some level of support for a while but the boarder picture will be the impact that the September results could have on the price when they are released in a few weeks time.

The past week was not filled with many positive sentiments, but there were some big trades going through on a number of days. On Friday, it was the time for Grace Kennedy to shine with a big trade valued at $156,716,459 as investors picked up 2,773,709 units closing the price at $56.50 down by 50 cents. With such a sizeable trade one may be tempted to think that Grace Kennedy was in the market with their buy-back plan. Data showed Stocks & Securities was the main seller while NCB Capital Markets, who bought 1 million units and JMMB Securities with 600,000, were the two large buyers while Stocks & Securities crossed 1 million units. Stocks & Securities crossed 2,914,752 Scotia Group shares while 1 million units were acquired by Scotia Investments for clients as Mayberry sold 1.2 million units resulting in a total of 4,384,221 of Scotia Group shares trading to close at $20.30 down 20 cents, for a value of $91,350,946.

Elsewhere, Cable & Wireless exchanged 443,865 units firm at 18 cents; Caribbean Cement 27,242 units resulted in a close at $2; First Caribbean International Bank traded 16,176 to close firm at $100; Jamaica Broilers enjoyed a 50 cents recovery as 10,000 units changed hands to close at $4.50. Mayberry Investments traded 60,663 units with the price unchanged at $2.61 at close; National Commercial Bank chipped in with 214,105 shares as the price ended at $18.25 up 5 cents. Radio Jamaica 2,030,000 units traded mostly at $1.32, the closing price, and Sagicor Life put in 260,151 units to close at $8.60 up by 26 cents.

In the preference sector, Jamaica Money Market Brokers 8.75% preference shares changed 364,000 units at $3 and Proven Investments 8% preference shares traded just 78,000 to close unchanged at $5.09.

Junior market | Trading picked up in the junior market as 11 of the companies participated in trading as Blue Power Group traded 21,847 units to close unchanged at $9.28; Caribbean Producers had 383,347 units going through the market to close unchanged at $2.08; Dolphin Cove put in a big trade as 2,228,030 units with a value of $18,490,999 were traded as the price recovered 50 cents to close at $8; General Accident Insurance exchanged 42,051 units to close 14 cents up to end at $1.65.

Jamaican Teas saw 64,007 changing hands as the price slipped by 10 cents to close at $3.80; Lasco Distributors 131,841 units resulted in no change in price of $1.45; Lasco Financial 68,794 units traded to close unchanged at $1.20; Lasco Manufacturing put on 4 cents to close at $1.45 with 87,141 units and Paramount Trading lost 20 cents as 99,615 units traded to close at $3.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed the market in a sideways movement with bids for 5 stocks being higher and 5 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.

Thursday, 10th October 2013 | Carreras was selling as high as $61 per share in May this year but that was before the smoking ban was announced in June and the company reported a 30 percent drop in revenues and an even bigger fall in profits for the June quarter as the cigarette price hike earlier in the year took its toll on sales.

Those who made the exit move early are now laughing while others who were banking on a special dividend pay-out are possibly ruing the day they decided to stick it out. The stock, that had some increased buying interest after the September AGM, has seen a big fall out as the company reported sales are off 25 percent since the smoking ban, leaving investors to speculate as to exactly what this means for profits in the short and longer term. Today Carreras traded just 7,212 units, fell to $39.01 at the close, down $4.49. A few brave investors placed bids at $40 to purchase 3,600 units, below there are bids for 425,000 units at and above $38.

Today, the market continued its negative run non-stop from last week Thursday as the prices of 12 stocks fell to only 4 recording gains, a slight improvement over the day before when 16 fell and 6 advanced. Jamaica Producers enjoyed a big trade of 14.6 million shares valued at $270 million as the price closed at $18.50 off by just 3 cents and was the major contributor to the amount of funds passing through the market.

The JSE main index closed at 82,934.25, a decline of 728.08, the all Jamaica Index fell to 81,616.21 off by 1,281.05 and the junior market was off by 8.14 to 740.87. The all Jamaica Index has shed 5.2 percent of its value since last week Thursday by falling 4,213 points, the main market index is off by 2,394 points or nearly 3 percent and the junior market 3.8 percent.

There was trading of 19,118,353 shares valued at $315,360,235.

Main market | On a day of falling prices, Grace Kennedy was trading at $57, up 25 cents with 68,994 with a value of $3.9 million, the stock traded in Trinidad at J$64. In an overall negative weakness in the market, many prices retreated including Jamaica Broilers that lost 55 cents while trading 27,030 units to close at $4.00; Jamaica Money Market Brokers saw 46,544 units trading as the price closed firm at $8. The stock is traded in T&T at $9.20 on Thursday. National Commercial Bank traded a mere 2,975 to close at $18.20 down 30 cents; Pan Jamaican Investment traded 500,728 units valued at $24.2 million to close at $50.34, up by $1.34; Sagicor Life traded 54,583 units to close at $8.34 down by 17 cents; Scotia Group traded 254,813 units to close at $20.50, down 50 cents with a value of $5,241,227; Scotia Investments traded just 3,019 units to close at $26.50, up by 32 cents.

Jamaica Money Market Brokers 7.50% preference shares traded 77,814 units firm at $2; Proven Investments 8% preference share traded 1,189,280 units valued at $6,053,435 to close firm at $5.09.

Junior market | The junior market has lost much ground in recent weeks and closed down again as most of the stocks trading fell. Access Financial Services traded 412,874 units to close at $8.28 for a 12 cents fall; Caribbean Producers exchanged 20,000 units to close firm at $2.08; Dolphin Cove traded 17,000 units and dropped 50 cents to close at $7.50; General Accident Insurance which closed at $1.61 lost more ground as $1.51 31,167 units traded to close at $1.51, down by 10 cents; Jamaican Teas exchanged 256,274 units to close at $3.90; Lasco Distributors lost 3 cents with 411,800 units to close at $1.45; Lasco Financial Services had another million shares day in trading of 1,028,280 units versus 1,005,106 on Wednesday units to close unchanged at $1.20 and Lasco Manufacturing traded 59,566 units to close at $1.41, down 9 cents.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator showed the market in a sideways movement with bids for 6 stocks being higher and 5 stocks with offers lower than their last selling price.