600% ytd gain for West Indies Petroleum

September 9, 2026 by
West Indies Petroleum closing trading at the end of August with the price at $9.17, for a 600 percent increase, from the start of the year, and dwarfing all others, with the JSE Main Market climbing just 17.4 percent for the year to the end of August.

Elsewhere, the IC TOP 10 winners recorded gains ranging from a low of 11 percent for the year to the end of August for Scotia Group, up to 127 percent for Transjamaican Highway. NCB Financial followed  with a 90 percent increase for the country’s largest banking group.
West Indies Petroleum increased revenue in the quarter ended June due to increased revenues, leading to investors maintaining interest in the stock at an elevated valuation. Transjamaican Highway finished with gains of 127 percent, to be the second best performing Main market stocks, aided by the increase in toll revenue as traffic volume across the network grew. NCB Financial, rose 90 percent, as gains from core banking and insurance activities delivered attractive profits from continuing operations. Carreras gained 86 percent and General Accident boosted by a rise in insurance contract revenue and other income, as well as the planned acquisition of the majority shares in Trinidadian based Beacon Insurance ended with the stock climbing 38 percent to end of August. Lascelles Manufacturing and Sagicor Real Estate X Fund also joined the ICTOP 10. Lascelles Manufacturing had a rise in revenue and profit in the June quarter and Sagicor Real Estate Fund benefitting improved results in its core operations.

The Worst Performers. Notwithstanding the top performance of the companies with healthy gains, the market suffered from notable declines, following poor profit results for several companies. MPC Caribbean Clean Energy tops ICInsider.com Top 10 Main Market losers, reporting a steep 46.8 percent loss for the year to August, 2026. During this period the company had unrealized fair value losses and slowdown of its wind farming operations. Palace Amusement ended as the second worst performing stock, with a 40 percent, with sharp fall in operating profits. Revenue for the period dropped, following damage caused by Hurricane Melissa to Multiplex in Montego Bay, which has not reopened, but the problem was compounded by lack sufficient quality films during the period to attract sufficient patrons to the cinemas. Sygnus Real Estate Finance slipped 38 percent, with huge losses incurred in 2026 to date. First Rock Real Estate Investments fell sharply 36 percent and VM Investments declined by 34 percent, with underperformance of the investments portfolio, in rounding out the list of the five worst performers.

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Sluggish trading on the JSE USD Market

July 22, 2026 by
Sluggish trading characterised activity on the Jamaica Stock Exchange US Dollar Market on Wednesday, with a 92 percent drop in the volume of stocks traded and a 90 percent plunge in value compared to Tuesday. At the close of the market, nine securities were exchanged, similar to trading on Tuesday, with prices of three rising, two declining and four ending unchanged.

The market closed with an exchange of just 196,825 shares for US$13,167, tumbling from 2,316,305 stocks at US$133,841 on Tuesday.
The market ended with an average of 21,869 shares trading at US$1,463, after plunging from 257,367 stock units at US$14,871 on Tuesday. Trading for the month to date averages 158,053 units at US$68,277 compared with 167,481 stock units at US$72,902 on the previous day and well below June, ending with an average of 625,703 units for US$203,999.
The US Denominated Equities Index advanced 1.93 points to wrap up trading at 274.06. The Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows six stocks ending with bids higher than their last selling prices and none with a lower offer.
The PE Ratio, one of the most used measures to determine appropriate stock values, averages 12.4. ICInsider.com compiles the earnings per share and the PE used in this report. The PE ratio is derived by dividing the last traded price of a stock by the earnings per share for the financial year ending around August 2026.
At the close of trading, First Rock Real Estate USD share lost 0.16 of a cent to close at 1.87 US cents after a transfer of 7,936 stocks, Productive Business Solutions remained at 85 US cents with investors swapping 61 units, Proven Investments ended at 5.4 US cents with 80,223 shares crossing the market. Quantas Advantage gained 0.31 of a cent to finish at 8.61 US cents with a transfer of 4,758 stock units, Sygnus Credit Investments shed 0.5 of a cent and ended at a 52 weeks low of 4.8 US cents with 40,165 shares clearing the market, Sygnus Real Estate Finance USD share rose 0.73 of a cent to end at 5.19 US cents in an exchange of 392 stocks and Transjamaican Highway advanced 0.1 of one cent in closing at 6.1 US cents with investors trading 63,065 units.
In the preference segment, Sygnus Credit Investments 8% ended at US$11.10 in switching ownership of 41 stock units and Sygnus Credit Investments E8.5% remained at US$10 with 184 shares crossing the exchange.
The closing prices of securities are those of the last transaction.

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Profits continue to send mixed signals

April 21, 2024 by

Early profit results for the first 2024 quarter show some positives, with the Montego Bay-based Knutsford Express reporting b revenue growth and profit for the quarter and the nine months to February, followed by positive results for AMG Packaging and Express Catering, but there were also some disappointing ones.

Knutsford Express

The directors of Knutsford Express stated that “strong and steady demand for our courier services complemented our passenger services have combined in delivering year to date profit of $268 million, up 27.1 percent from $211 million at the end of February 2023. We, therefore, recorded a 20.9 percent growth in our total revenue in this quarter moving to $565 million from $468 million in the comparative period in 2023. Similarly, our nine-month year-to-date revenue has increased by 19.5 percent from $1,281 million in 2023 to $1,530 million in 2024.”
Innovative Energy, formerly Ciboney reported no revenues in the February quarter and a loss of $4.4 million with the year to date, ending with $500,000 in income and a loss of $7.8 million.
AMG Packaging grew profit by 79 percent to $32 million from $18 million in 2023, better than the 72 percent rise in the first quarter. For the six months to February, profit was up by 79 percent to $84 million from $47 million in 2023.
Revenues climbed from US$6 million to US$7 million at Express Catering, up 17.6 percent in the quarter and increased by 23 percent from US$15 million to US$18.7 million, delivering a profit of US$2 million for the year to date and US$1 million for the latest quarter, compared with US$1.9 million for the nine months in 2023 and $1.15 million in the February 2023 quarter. Ian Dear, the company’s CEO confirmed that added cost in the third quarter would have been associated with new restaurants opened close to the quarter as such, some of the cost would not be fully covered by revenues.
The revenue at Margaritaville (Turks) rose just 5 percent to US$5.25 million for the current year, compared to US$4.98 million for the same period last year, with a net profit of US$521,909, earnings per share of 0.773 US cents compared with the similar period of 2023, with a net profit of US$1.18 million which includes non-recurring gains of US$658,000 for EPS of 1.749 US cents.
For the third quarter, revenues fell to US$1.9 million from US$2.2 million in 2023, delivering a profit of US$222,174 versus US$725,000 in 2023 including one time income of US$340,000.
Sygnus Real Estate Finance fell by 43 percent in the February quarter from $67 million in 2023 to $44 million in 2024. For six months revenues reached $88 million down 38 percent from $142 million in the prior year. The company incurred a loss of $187 million in the 2024 second quarter 45 percent worse than the $129 million and for the six months, a loss of $320 million was incurred marginally more than $302 million in 2023.

Paramount Trading is expanding into Chlorine and bleach processing.

Paramount Trading reported reduced revenues and profit for the third quarter and the nine months. Revenues in the February quarter declined 8.5 percent from $438 million in 2023 to $401 million in 2024. For the nine months, revenues fell 23 percent from $1.63 billion down to $1.266 billion with profits coming in at 40 percent lower at $18 million for the quarter from $30 million in 2023 and 44 percent to $100 million for the nine months of February this year from $179 million in the previous year.
One On One Educational Services reported revenues of $57 million in the February quarter down 12 percent from $73 million in 2023 and fell 27 percent to $111 million for the six months to February from $153 million in 2023.
A loss of $20 million million was incurred in the February quarter down from a profit of $6 million in 2023 and a loss of $41 million for the six months, down from a profit of $17 million in 2023 for the 6 months.

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Volume drops on the JSE USD Market

June 19, 2023 by

Trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange US dollar market ended on Monday with a 23 percent decline in the volume of stocks changing hands valued 35 percent more than on Friday and resulting in the trading of four securities, down from 11 on Friday with one rising, two declining and one ending unchanged.
Overall, 764,260 shares were exchanged for US$20,272 compared to 992,059 stock units at US$15,037 on Friday.
Trading on Monday averaged 191,065 shares at US$5,068 compared to 90,187 shares at US$1,367 on Friday, with a month to date average of 74,695 shares for  US$2,303 compared with 69,154 units at US$2,171 on the previous trading day. May ended with an average of 43,350 units for US$2,759.
The US Denominated Equities Index dipped 1.17 points to settle at 241.01.
The PE Ratio, a measure used in computing appropriate stock values, averages nine. The PE ratio is computed based on the last traded price divided by projected earnings done by ICInsider.com for companies with their financial year ending between November 2023 and August 2024.
Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows two stocks ended with bids higher than their last selling prices and two with lower offers.
At the close, First Rock Real Estate USD share shed 0.5 of a cent to close at 5 US cents with stakeholders trading 7,000 shares, Proven Investments dipped 0.3 of one cent to 15.7 US cents as investors traded 55,445 stock units, Sterling Investments rallied 0.01 of a cent to 1.6 US cents in trading 688,125 units and Transjamaican Highway remained at 1.44 US cents, with 13,690 stocks crossing the exchange.
Prices of securities trading are those for the last transaction of each stock unless otherwise stated.

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Trading plunged on JSE USD Market

March 9, 2023 by

Trading plunged on the Jamaica Stock Exchange US dollar market ended on Thursday, with a 96 percent fall in the volume of stocks changing hands valued 75 percent less than that on Wednesday and resulted in nine securities traded, compared to seven on Wednesday with one rising, four declining and four ending unchanged.
A total of 4,892 shares were exchanged for US$3,727 compared with 125,994 units at US$14,617 on Wednesday.
Trading averaged 544 shares for US$414 compared to 17,999 shares at US$2,088 on Wednesday, with a month to date average of 8,472 shares at US$2,489 compared with 10,171 units at US$2,934 on the previous day. February ended with an average of 43,793 units for US$2,015.
The JSE USD Equities Index dropped 6.93 points to end at 224.37.
The PE Ratio, a measure used in computing appropriate stock values, averages 9.7. The PE ratio is computed based on the last traded price of each stock divided by ICInsider.com’s projected earnings for companies with financial year ending between November 2022 and August 2023.
Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows two stocks ended with bids higher than the last selling prices and one with a lower offer.
At the close, First Rock Real Estate USD share climbed 0.02 of a cent to end at 7 US cents after an exchange of 82 shares, Margaritaville shed 1 cent in closing at 11.5 US cents after a transfer of 148 stock units, MPC Caribbean Clean Energy remained at 66.6 US cents with investors transferring 61 stocks. Productive Business Solutions dropped 10 cents to close at US$1.80 with 27 units changing hands, Proven Investments dipped 0.5 of a cent to 18.5 US cents in switching ownership of 850 shares and Sygnus Credit Investments USD share ended at 9.8 US cents after 2,021 stocks crossed the market.
In the preference segment, Productive Business 9.25% preference share remained at US$12.40 while exchanging 20 stock units, JMMB Group 5.75% ended at US$2.01 after investors traded 1,036 units and JMMB Group 6% declined by 1.86 cents to US$1.07, with 647 stock units changing hands.
Prices of securities trading are those for the last transaction of each stock unless otherwise stated.

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Trading volume climbs on the JSE USD market

January 16, 2023 by

Trading activity was fairly steady on the Jamaica Stock Exchange US dollar market on Monday, with the volume of stocks changing hands rising 271 percent and valued 347 percent more than on Friday, resulting in trading in five securities, compared to 10 on Friday with three rising, one declining and one ending unchanged.
A total of 162,532 shares were exchanged for US$29,630 versus 43,767 units at US$6,623 on Friday.
Trading averaged 32,506 units at US$5,926 versus 4,377 shares at US$662 on Friday, with month to date average of 33,429 shares at US$3,056 compared with 33,484 units at US$2,883 on the previous trading day. December ended with an average of 39,679 units for US$1,494.
The JSE US Denominated Equities Index slipped 0.10 points to end at 227.22.
The PE Ratio, a measure used in computing appropriate stock values, averages 8.5. The PE ratio uses ICInsider.com earnings forecasts for companies with financial years ending between November 2022 and August 2023.
Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows no stock ending with a bid higher than the last selling price and none with a lower offer.
At the close, First Rock Real Estate USD share popped 0.29 of a cent to end at 7.79 US cents after 34 shares were traded, Proven Investments increased 0.9 of one cent ending at 19.9 US cents as investors exchanged 153,626 stocks, Sterling Investments ended at 1.95 US cents after exchanging 8,685 stock units and Sygnus Credit Investments J$ share declined 0.34 of one cent in closing at 13.28 US cents with a mere eight units changing hands.
In the preference segment, JMMB Group 6% climbed 4.01 cents to close at US$1.0901 as 179 stock units passed through the market.
Prices of securities trading are those for the last transaction of each stock unless otherwise stated.

Filed Under: Global Market, Stock Market Tagged With: , , , ,