The Main Market of Jamaica Stock Exchange slipped on Thursday but the Junior Market and the JSE US dollar market popped moderately to record gains at the close of trading, with the volume and value of shares trading surged sharply above Wednesday’s levels as 241,050,585 Radio Jamaica shares changed hands with a value of $462,817,871.
At the close, the Combined Market Index fell 853.09 points to close at 353,155.28, the JSE Main Index fell 1,030.71 points to 340,401.94 while the All Jamaica Composite Index dipped 2,606.04 points to 384,667.98, the Junior Market popped 12.10 points to 3,879.39 and the JSE US dollar market rose 1.56 points to 226.35.
Trading surged, with 252,787,537 shares changing hands, for $539.6 million, versus $65.6 million, with 17,993,851 shares traded in all markets on the previous day. The JSE USD market ended with the value of stocks traded amounting to US$5,282 from US$7,682 on Wednesday.
The market’s PE ratio ended at 22.4 based on 2021-22 earnings and 12.6 times those for 2022-23 at the close of trading.
Investors need pertinent information to successfully navigate many investment options in the local stock market. The ICInsider.com PE ratio chart and the more detailed daily report charts provide investors with regularly updated information to help decision-making.
Investors should use the chart to help make rational investment decisions by investing in stocks close to the average for the sector and not going too far from it unless there are compelling reasons to do so. This approach helps to remove emotions from investment decisions and put in on fundamentals while at the same time not being too far from the majority of investors. Investors who buy when the price of a stock is close to the average will find that they are not inclined to overpay for a stock.
The ICInsider.com PE Ratio chart covers all ordinary shares on the Jamaica Stock Exchange. It shows companies grouped on an industry basis, allowing easy comparisons between the same sector companies and the overall market.
The net asset value of each company is reported as a guide to assess the value of stocks based on this measure quickly. The chart also shows daily changes in stock prices and the percentage year to date price movement based on the last traded prices. Dividends payable and yields for each company are shown in the Main and Junior Markets’ daily report charts that show the closing volume for the bids and offers.
The EPS & PE ratios are based on 2021 and 2022 actual or projected earnings, excluding major one off items. The PE Ratio is the most popular measure used to determine the value of stocks.
Radio Jamaica pushed trading on Thursday
RJR profit explodes
Revenues at Radio Jamaica fell for the year to March 2021, by 7 percent to $5.2 billion, from $5.6 billion, but there ends the bad news for the group that comprises television, radio and newsprint as their main products. On the revenue front, the good news starts emerging with the final quarter climbing 11.6 percent to $1.4 billion from $1.25 billion in 2020.
Full year profit surged 351 percent over 2020 to hit $171 million and just 7 cents per share, from $38 million in 2020. The March quarter, which is usually one of the worse for the group, with mostly ends losses, generated $44 million profit after tax.
The profit for the fourth quarter in 2021 compares exceptionally well with a loss of $156 million in the final quarter of 2019 and a loss of $96 million in 2020, March quarter. The sharp turnaround is directly attributed to the cost surgery the group underwent last year.
The year’s performance comes against the backdrop of $366 million in what can be considered one off costs in a year when revenues fell 7 percent, redundancy payment amounting to $183 million and provisions for bad debt $158 million. In addition, included in operating cost is $164 million for web development, an item that appears to be more of a capital nature than an expense, but it has been reported as an expense for some years. Importantly, redundancy costs will not repeat, at least for the same workers but critically, it will result in an annual staff cost savings of a similar amount in the future. For the past year, those workers who were made redundant would have been employed for approximately half the year, so the reduction in wages in 2021 onwards would be around $90 million. In line with the above, salaries and wages fell $365 million to $1.5 billion for the 2021 fiscal year. Some of the reductions relate to a period when staff members were on reduced pay. Inventories expensed to direct production expenses during the year amounted to $213 million, well down on the $393 million for the Group in 2020.
Segment results show television revenues growing 7 percent for the year to $2.36 billion, with the March quarter surging an attractive 23 percent to $626 million. The segment had the worse period in the fiscal year with a 2.7 percent decline in revenues for the June quarter. Operating profit from this segment blasted off from $132 million to $479 million.
Radio suffered just a 4 percent reduction in revenues, with most of that coming in the June quarter, with a fall of 20 percent and the segment delivered an operating profit of $95 million for the year from a small loss of $4 million in 2020. For the final quarter, revenues for radio were up one percent over 2020 to $184 million.
The print division took the brunt of the hit to revenues last year, with a fall of 40 percent in the June quarter, 20 percent in the September quarter and 19 percent in the December quarter. Revenues fell 19 percent to $2.3 billion for the year but enjoyed a six percent bounce in the March quarter, putting it ahead of the 2019 revenues, but ended 2021 with an operating loss of $267 million from a small loss of $14 million in 2020. The bulk of the redundancy of 106 workers came from the print division, with a redundancy cost of $157 million. The March quarter results mark a major about turn for that division, with increased revenues, but the segment results show an increased loss in 2021 of $64 million versus $28 million in 2020; this could be due to bad debt provisions that may have been made in the final quarter.
Cash inflows for the quarter were $600 million versus $403 million in 2020, but after working capital changes, inflows slipped to $540 million, after paying $176 million on the acquisition of property and receiving loan proceeds of $132 million resulted in cash on hand growing by $426 million.
The group ended with cash and equivalent of $725 million at the end of March, up from $282 million, while borrowings stood at $528 million, up from $425 million at the end of the 2020 fiscal year. Receivables climbed to $1.2 billion from $1 billion at the end of March 2020, but allowance for impairment grew from $288 million to $395 million.
Current assets stood at $2.1 billion and current liabilities at $1 billion, resulting in net current assets of $1.1 billion. Shareholders’ equity grew to $2.5 billion from $2.3 billion as of March 2020.
ICInsider.com projects a profit of just over $970 million or 40 cents per share for the 2022 fiscal year and 55 cents per share for 2023. The stock last traded at $1.67 on the Main Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Friday and trades at a PE ratio of 4, well below the average of 16 currently for the Main Market. The stock is ICInsider.com BUY RATED.
JSE gains in early trading – Thursday
Key Insurance listed on the junior market of the Jamaican Stock Exchange this morning but has not traded so far but have bids between $2.50 and $2.51 to buy 55,000 shares, there were no stocks offered for sale.
After 75 minutes of the market’s opening, Caribbean Cement rose by $1 to $26 with a small volume, Jamaica Broilers traded with a gain of 57 with 362,086 shares at $14.85, JMMB Group lost 94 cents to trade at $10.01, RJR traded for the first time since the merger with the Gleaner and after issuing a bonus and splitting of its stock to shed 20 cents to be $1.46.
A total of 27 securities, accounting for 1,498,580 shares have changed hands at 10.45am as 7 stocks gained and 7 declined.
The indices enjoyed moderate gains in the main market after suffering modest declines earlier in the session with the all Jamaica Composite Index rising 18.35 points to 170,915.88, the JSE Market Index gaining 16.42 points to 153,871.09 the JSE combined index ending with a gain of 221.95 points to 162,404.47 and the junior market index gained 22.30 points to 1,917.06.
Jump in Gleaner’s Q3 profits by 70%
The Gleaner Company, producers of Jamaica’s oldest newspaper, earned increased profits for its September quarter. The North Street based institution earned $27 million profit for the quarter, 70 per cent more profit than a year ago.
The 2015 results are commendable as its revenues dipped to $777 million or 9 percent less than a year earlier in the quarter, including a fall of $26 million in investment income to $54 million for the quarter while media income fell $68 million for the same period.
For the nine-months, the Gleaner made $130 million net profit or 122 per cent more than the $58.6 million earned a year earlier. Revenues continued its downward drift by 5.6 percent to $2.38 billion, partially helped by a fall of $34 million in investment income to $90 million while media income fell $120 million for the same period
Gleaner enjoyed other operating income of $61 million and $63 million in 2014 as a result of gains on foreign exchange on investments and Finance income includes interest on loans. Consequently, the profit resulted from efficiency gains in slashing administrative and ‘other operating’ expenses during the quarter.
Interestingly, however, with the jump in profit the company ended the quarter with $93 million in cash flow down from $164 million from operation in 2014 period and ended with $37.7 million cash in the bank at September 2015 and $42 million September 2014 and $772 million in investments up from $690 million at September 2014.
The Gleaner continues to prepare its media operations for the merger with the Radio Jamaica Group, another legacy media entity. It will create one of the largest broadcast and print media entities in the Anglophone Caribbean. Plans to merge were announced on August 5, 2015, with the merger is expected to be concluded by year-end, subject to the approval of a splintered shareholders of Radio Jamaica. There is little doubt that the Gleaner’s shareholders will not approve, with the company’s Chairman in control of a large block of the Gleaner’s shares.
Net asset at the end of September is $2.32 per share. The stock is priced at $1.90, with earnings per share of 10.76 cents for the nine months period and 2.27 cents for the quarter. The company seems on target to earn 20 cents per share, for the full year.
Gleaner’s shareholders will get the equivalent of a third of each of the RJR existing shares as well us retain shares in the remnants of the Gleaner with net assets around $1.70 per share, if the merger proceeds. But the overall gains will be well in above the current combined value of $3.53 based on the $5.20 price of RJR shares last sold at with indication of further rise to come, based on a big jump RJR’s revenues and profit in the September quarter.
Profit up 137% for RJR in Q3
The major improvement should be great news to shareholders who have seen the price of the stock tumble to a low of $1 per share last year, as profit melted away with sluggish revenues growth. The final quarter based on history, is likely to be a small profit at best, hence investors should not be looking at too much more in profits when the financial year ends. Earnings per share ended at 29 cents for the quarter and 32 cents for the nine months.
Gross profit margin improved in both the quarter and year to date, versus the prior year as sales grew 16 percent to $590 million in the quarter and 10 percent in the nine months, to reach $1.4 billion. Other revenue jumped sharply in the quarter due to foreign exchange gains, management states. Gross profit also increased at a faster pace than sales revenues. Cost increases were kept to 8 percent in the December quarter and 11 percent for the nine months.
RJR is in a healthy financial state with cash funds amounting to $130 million, loans of $2036 million, working capital of $565 million and equity capital of $1.3 billion.
The stock last traded at $1.10 on the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Friday.
Jamaica Producers buys more KWH shares
Kingston Wharves $3 billion trade, dominated activity on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, in Wednesday’s trading. The Wharf company had 466 million units of its stock sold to Jamaica Producers and Seaboard Corporation, a United States company, involved in food, energy and the shipping industry, by National Commercial Bank.
The stock traded at $6.50 up from $5.01 on Tuesday, but it had a bid of $5.75 which allowed the trade to take place 29.75 percent above the closing price on Tuesday. Normally, there would be a 15 percent limitation on the daily trading price movement, from the prior day’s last traded price. but allowances are made for cases where the bids or offer of the previous day better reflect the market value of the stock.
Trading activity resulted in the prices of 10 stocks rising and 5 declining as only 20 securities changed hands, resulting in 470,310,461 units trading, valued at $3,066,292,531, in all market segments.
Main Market| The JSE Market Index gained 631.80 points to 72,064.01 and the JSE All Jamaican Composite index rose 706.45 points to close at 79,288.84.
IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading, in the main and junior markets, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator had only 4 stocks with bids higher than their last selling prices and 7 stocks with offers that were lower, suggesting a likely negative movement in prices on Thursday.
Gains| Stocks gaining with last traded prices, at the end of trading in the main market are, Berger Paints with 3,799 shares trading, with a 3 cents rise to $1.65, Carreras with 1,500 shares changing hands, 35 cents higher at $34.65, Desnoes & Geddes put through 13,083 units with a gain of 10 cents to end at $4.80, Grace Kennedy had 4,955 shares changing hands and gained $1, to $59, Kingston Wharves 466,435,712 shares traded with a gain of $1.49 to $6.50, Mayberry Investments closed with a 2 cents gain at $1.47 after 9,000 units went through the market, there were no stock on offer at the close of trading, National Commercial Bank never benefited from the big sale of Kingston Wharves shares and had 89,031 units active, with a 20 cents increase to $18.20 and Sagicor Group saw 3,157,519 units moving 50 cents higher, at $9.75.
Firm| The stocks in the main market to close without a change in the last traded prices are, Proven Investments with 30,000 units, closed at 17.99 US cents and Radio Jamaica with 2,132 shares at $1.04.
Declines| The last traded prices of stocks with losses at the end of trading in the main market are, Caribbean Cement with 93,220 shares, lost 19 cents to end at $2.36, Sagicor Real Estate Fund traded just 14,436 units with 28 cents loss at $6.52 and Scotia Group with 93,248 shares, closed 8 cents lower at $19.01.
Preference| Jamaica Money Market Brokers 8.75% preference share traded 10,500 units at $3 and Jamaica Money Market Brokers 7.50% preference share traded 27,546 units at $2.
JSE Market stronger than fall in indices suggest
In Wednesday’s trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, the prices of 8 stocks rose and 5 declined as 24 securities changed hands, resulting in 4,501,713 shares trading, valued at $25,395,300.
Main Market| The JSE Market Index fell by 318.39 points to 71,629.96 and the JSE All Jamaican Composite index lost 356.02 points to close at 78,803.50.
Gains| Stocks with gains, volume and last traded prices at the end of trading in the main market, are Desnoes & Geddes trading of 1,000 shares to gain 55 cents to $4.55, Jamaica Broilers with 623,700 units changing hands to close with a 2 cents gain at $4.63, Jamaica Money Market Brokers with 33,753 shares gained 10 cents to $7.05, Pan Jamaican Investment gained 2 cents, to close with 68,600 shares at $48.03, Sagicor Group with 4,800 shares ended with an increase of 4 cents at $9.15 and Scotia Group 70,458 units enjoyed a 1 cent gain to $19.01.
Firm| The stocks with volume and last traded prices in the main market to close without a change in price, are Gleaner with 2,020 shares at $1.12, Grace Kennedy 9,624 units at $56.50, Hardware & Lumber 10,000 shares a $9, Jamaica Producers 30,714 shares at $17.50, Radio Jamaica with 5,592 units at $1.22, Scotia Investments 12,600 shares to close at $21, Seprod with 2,215 shares, ended at $10.50 and Supreme Ventures with 25,602units closed at $1.95.
Preference| Jamaica Money Market Brokers 8.75% preference share traded 2,035,823 units at $3.
Declines| The stocks with losses, volume and last traded prices at the end of trading in the main market, are Carreras with 143,726 shares to close with a decline of 29 cents at $33.71, National Commercial Bank with 183,680 shares and closed with a decline 7 cents to $18.93 and Proven Investments ordinary share traded 15,609 units with the price dropping by 2 US cent 16 US cents.
Junior Market| The JSE Junior Market Index declined by 1.00 point to close at 609.88 as 6 stocks traded, with 2 advancing and 2 declining.
Gains| Stocks recording gains at the end of trading in the junior market, are KLE Group 14,460 shares to gain 5 cents at $1 and Lasco Distributors exchanging 815,867 shares as the price recovered 4 cents from the decline on Tuesday, to end at $1.
Firm Trades| Stocks in the junior market that traded to close at the same price as the day before are General Accident with 64,246 units and closed at $1.37 and Jamaican Teas with 39,636 shares closed at $3.25.
Declines| Stocks declining in the junior market at the end of trading, are Lasco Financial with 9,400 shares and declined 10 cents to 90 cents and Lasco Manufacturing with 278,588 shares, closed with a decline of 5 cents to reach a new 52 weeks low of 80 cents.
IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator had 12 stocks with bids higher than their last selling prices and 7 stocks with offers that were lower.
Quiet start to trading week
In Monday’s trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, the prices of 5 stocks rose and 4 declined as 24 securities changed hands resulting in a moderate volume of 1,236,101 shares trading, valued at only $6,501,176.
During the early hours of trading, more than 5 million shares of Scotia Group traded but 5 million units were cancelled, due to what the stock exchange said was an error on the buying brokers behalf resulting more stocks being traded than was the official order.
Main Market| The JSE Market Index rose by 197.76 points to 71,909.56 and the JSE All Jamaican Composite index moved up 221.14 points to close at 79,116.15.
Gains| Stocks recording gains, the volume traded and last traded prices, at the close in the main market, are Carreras with 4,113 shares to close with a gain of 90 cents at $34.90, Gleaner with 10,670 units changing hands, gained a cent to close at $1.12, National Commercial Bank 63,229 units with a gain of 94 cents to $19, Proven Investments 52,500 US dollar ordinary shares with an increase of 0.0100 US cents at 18 cents US and Scotia Group with 1,700 shares to end up a cent higher at $20.01.
Firm| The volume and last traded prices of stock trading in the main market to close without a change in price, are Berger Paints with 2,000 shares closing at $1.62, Cable & Wireless 152,455 units at 30 cents, Caribbean Cement with 3,000 shares changing hands at $2.50, Desnoes & Geddes with 645 units at $4, Kingston Wharves 34,221 shares at $5, Mayberry Investments 3,040 units at $1.55, Radio Jamaica 33,556 shares at $1.22, Sagicor Real Estate Fund 18,000 shares at $6.36, Scotia Investments 2,255 units at $21 and Supreme Ventures 17,400 shares at $1.95.
Declines| The only stock end of trading in the main market with a price decline is Sagicor Group with 247,000 shares, down 4 cents to end at $8.96.
Preference| Jamaica Money Market Brokers 8.75% preference share, traded 341,022 units at $3 and Proven Investments 8% preference share 3,500 units at $5.05.
Junior Market| The JSE Junior Market Index increased 4.73 points to close at 632.01 as 6 stocks traded with none advancing and 3 declining.
Gains| There were stocks recording gains in the junior market at the close.
Firm Trades| The active stocks in the junior market to close at the same price as the day before, are Caribbean Cream with 48,060 units at 70 cents, Caribbean Producers 65,000 shares at $2.45 and Consolidated Bakeries with 55,000 units at 80 cents.
Declines| Stocks declining in the junior market at the end of trading, are AMG Packaging that had 7,145 units trading, with a 21 cents fall to $2.89, Caribbean Flavours 3,400 shares closed with a 6 cents loss at $2.45 and Lasco Manufacturing with 67,190 units as the price fell 10 cents to 90 cents.
IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator had 14 stocks with bids higher than their last selling prices and 5 stocks with offers that were lower.