The JSE junior market rose to another all-time high on Tuesday with 2 stocks rising and 5 declining. The market gained a mere 0.01 point to close at a new closing high of 1,040.59.
At the close, 8 securities traded resulting in 769,557 units valued at $1,587,037 changing hands. The market ended with 5 securities closing with no bids to buy, while 6 had no stock being offered for sale and 3 stocks closed with bids higher than the last traded prices and only 1 with the offer being lower.
Stocks trading are, Access Financial closed with a loss of 88 cents at $18.12 with 2,700 units changing hands, Cargo Handlers ended with 250 shares changing hands at $31, Caribbean Cream traded 345,244 units, gained 20 cents to close at $2. Derrimon Trading ended with 60,500 shares changing hands, with a loss of 20 cents to end at $2.15, General Accident trade 1,000 shares to close at $1.78 for a loss of 8 cents, Lasco Financial Services traded 30,000 units to close at $1.89 after falling 9 cents. Lasco Manufacturing with 251,363 units changing hands closed at $2, for a fall of 10 cents and Medical Disposables closed with 78,500 units trading 10 cents higher at $2.25.
Juniors just barely make new high
1 stock fell on TTSE none rose
Trading on the Trinidad & Tobago Stock Exchange ended with 10 securities changing hands on Tuesday with no stock rising, 1 declining and 9 traded with prices unchanged as a total of 362,111 shares traded, valued at $4,141,088.
At the close of the market, the Composite Index fell 0.09 points to close at 1,151.20, the All T&T Index lost 0.18 points to 1,958.04 and the Cross Listed Index remained at 45.17.
Declines| Massy Holdings closed with just 8,262 shares valued at $521,168 changing hands at $63.08 after losing 1 cent.
Firm Trades| ANSA McAL with 571 shares ended at $67.25, Clico Investment Fund traded 43,480 units at $22.51 with a value of $978,734, First Citizens Bank closed at $35 with 4,166 shares changing hands, Flavorite Foods traded 7,500 shares at $4.80. 
Grace Kennedy closed with 50,000 shares changing hands at $3.60, Guardian Holdings had 2,600 shares trading at the close at $13.09, National Flour trade 1,000 units at $2.10, Scotiabank traded unchanged to end at $62.31 with 25,175 shares valued at $1,568,706 and Trinidad Cement ended with 219,357 shares valued at $636,135 changing hands unchanged at $2.90.
IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator had 4 stocks with the bid higher than their last selling prices and 5 stocks with offers that were lower.
Scotia pushes Indices again
On Friday Scotia Group gave a big boost to the main market index and on Monday took a big bite of the Friday’s gain but in early trading the stock that carries much weigh in the indices has push them up. In the process the All Jamaica Index trades at 111,929.08 to gain 551.76 points, JSE Market Index gain 493.64 points to 101,088.80. The combined index gained 486.02 to be at 104,759.29 and the junior market index 1,042.86 rising 2.28 points.
In main market trading, Gleaner traded at a new 52 weeks’ high of $2.09 with 25,000 shares to gain 20 cents, and an offer at $3.50, Sagicor Real Estate X Fund traded 86,402 units at $8.45, Scotia Group had 63,778 units changing hands at $26, Jamaica Money Market Brokers 7.50% preference share traded 46,000 units at $2. The junior market had 8 securities trading with Caribbean Cream trading 332,244 shares at $1.90 and Lasco Manufacturing trading 193,967 units at $2.
A total of 20 securities with a volume of 982,126 units have traded after 75 minutes of the market’s opening. 3 stocks have declined at versus 6 that rose.
Gleaner’s media assets valued at $1.16
The Gleaner’s media assets to be transferred to RJR in the recently announced merger, is now valued at $1.16 per shares based on RJR’s closing stock price on Monday of $4. The Gleaner’s stock traded at $1.89 on Monday.
The proposed merger of the media arm of the Gleaner Company with Radio Jamaica (RJR) will see the Gleaner’s shareholders being compensated for the media business that RJR is acquiring at the rate of 1 RJR share for each Gleaner share. The initial information led to the interpretation that the Gleaner shareholders would be getting 1.2 billion of the RJR shares while the RJR shareholders would remain with just over 350 million shares. According to information on the Gleaner’s website, RJR will increase the issued shares to 2.4 billion units that will then be shared equally between the shareholders of both companies. RJR will do a combination of a share split and issues of new shares of which 1.2 billion of the shares will be given to Gleaner shareholders as the payment for the Gleaner Company (Media) Limited subsidiary.
RJR currently has 350.154 million shares issued to get the numbers to 1.2 billion for the company’s shareholders would translate to a split of roughly 3.43 to each existing share.
In addition to the value of the media assets, the Gleaner shareholders will retain shares in the new company that will retain the non-media assets. IC Insider.com pieced together information that suggests that these assets which include the current headquarters of the Gleaner, could be valued around $2 billion or roughly $1.70 per share.
J$ makes gains on Monday
Purchases by dealers of foreign currencies on Monday, resulted in the Jamaican currency was stable versus the US and gained against the British Pound but slipped versus the Canadian. The market closed with dealers buying the equivalent of US$60,881,491 in contrast to US$34,870,069 on Friday, while they sold the equivalent of US$47,409,801, previously US$29,135,013.
In US dollar trading , dealers bought US$55,326,993 compared to US$31,870,265 on Friday. The buying rate for the US dollar rose 19 cents to $116.83 and US$45,378,025 was sold versus US$27,464,923 on Friday, the selling rate remained at $117.36. The Canadian dollar buying rate declined 38 cents to $87.11 with dealers buying C$2,036,937 and selling C$1,012,104, at an average rate that 
rose 18 cents to $89.08. The rate for buying the British Pound rose 14 cents to $179.45 for the purchase of £2,314,933, while £574,033 was sold, at an average rate that fell 72 cents to $181.46. At the end of trading, it took J$128.39 to purchase the Euro, with a rise of 83 cents on Friday’s rate, according to data from Bank of Jamaica, while dealers purchased the European common currency at J$125.68 for a rise of 95 cents on Friday’s rate. Other currencies bought, amounted to the equivalent of US$479,894, while the equivalent of US$375,955 was sold.
Highs & Lows| There were no changes to the highest and lowest trading 
rates for the US dollar, on Monday, with the rates remaining at $117.60, $96.15, $123.21 and $96.15 respectively. The highest buying rate for the Canadian dollar rose 45 cents to $89.90. The lowest buying rate remained a $70.63, the highest selling rate fell $2.24 to $91.26 and the lowest selling rate declined 80 cents to $85.20. The highest buying rate for the British Pound, declined $1.40 to $182.70, the lowest buying rate declined $1.29 to $146.20, the highest selling rate dropped $1.66 to $188.48 and the lowest selling rate dropped $27.72 to $149.73.
Unilever trying to recover from IT issues
Some of Unilever products
The company has now reported that in the second quarter the issues were resolved and service levels are now fully restored to our customers, thanks to enormous effort by employees succeeded in bringing about the turnaround. Despite these efforts, half year sales declined by 10.3%, driven predominantly by the declines in the first quarter performance. Profit after tax fell to $18.3 million down from $30.8 million in the prior year six months period. Earnings per share were 70 cents compared to 117 cents in the prior year. For the June quarter, the company generated revenues of $140.5 million versus $148 million in 2014 resulting in aftertax profit hitting $12.5 million from $17 million in 2014. A fall in selling, distribution and administrative cost in the 2015 second quarter versus 2014 helped cushioning the fall off in revenues and decline in gross profit that fell by $8.6 million, in 2014 there was $5.4 million in other revenues with none being earned in 2015.
“Looking forward we expect the challenges of the regional economies to impact our growth prospects. In Trinidad and Tobago the uncertainty of the upcoming elections continues to affect the business environment. Regionally, recovery continues to be slow due to the depreciation of local currencies and shortage of US dollars across markets, which is cause for concern. While the recovery from the first half of the year remains a challenge, Unilever Caribbean is optimistic that the investment in our new IT systems and infrastructure will build the foundation for future growth. However, at this time the outlook for the rest of the year remains moderate” Pablo Garrido, Chairman of the company reported to shareholders.
The stock last traded on the at $67 placing the PE at over 30 times earnings.
Bulls rampant with 6 new highs on Monday
Supply is virtually dried up for NCB
At the close, the JSE Market Index slipped 397.37 points to 100,596.16, the JSE All Jamaican Composite index fell 444.16 points to close at 111,377.32 and the JSE combined index declined 363.68 points to end at 104,273.27.
IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading in the main and junior markets, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator had a reading of 8 stocks with bids higher than their last selling prices and 7 with offers that were lower.
In trading, Cable and Wireless ended with 734,138 units changing hands and lost 1 cent to
end at 39 cents, Carreras traded 9,440 units to close at $52, Desnoes & Geddes had 64,610 shares changing hands at $6.55, down 15 cents. Gleaner traded at $1.89, and gained 37 cents after just 100 shares changed hands, in continued response to the merger of the company’s media operations, with that of Radio Jamaica. At the close, Gleaner closed with the bids above the last traded price at $2.09 with 6,238 shares for a new 52 weeks high. Grace Kennedy lost $1 in trading 10,933 shares to end at $63,
had 29,700 shares changing hands, in closing at $7 for a rise of 63 cents. Jamaica Producers traded 24,294 shares to end at $20 by gaining $1.15, The Jamaica Stock Exchange stock traded 104,900 units at $6.60, for a loss of 20 cents, Kingston Wharves ended with 699,999 shares changing hands at $7.05, to gain 5 cents. Mayberry Investments had 116,000 shares trading at $3.50 to gain 40 cents, for a new 52 weeks’ high, National Commercial Bank traded 66,421 shares at $30.01 after it traded earlier in the day at $30.50. At the close theJamaica Broilers
stock was offered at $32.50 to sell 245 units, the only other offers posted are, at $33 to sell 503 units and at $60 to sell 2,000 shares, the bid was at $30.01 to buy 51,091 units. Radio Jamaica traded just 106,922 shares to end at a 52 weeks’ high of $4 as the price gained 10 cents, Sagicor Group ended trading with 97,240 units at $13.50, to gain 54 cents. Sagicor Real Estate Fund lost 20 cents and closed at $8.30 while trading 48,229 units, Scotia Group ended with 768,044 units trading at $26 but traded as low as $23.66 during the day and Jamaica Money Market Brokers 7.50% preference traded 882,500 units at $2 after shedding 1 cent.
Juniors just make another high
Lasco Distributors” hot new “I Cool” drink. The stock closed at an all time high on Monday.
At the close, 6 securities traded resulting in 1,619,393 units valued at $3,244,958 changing hands. The market ended with 6 securities closing with no bids to buy, while 7 had no stocks being offered for sale and had 4 stocks with bids higher than the last traded prices and only 2 with the offers being lower. Stocks trading are, Blue Power
closed with a loss of 72 cents at $12.28 with 1,758 units changing hands, Caribbean Cream traded 101,408 units but lost 15 cents to close at $1.80. Lasco Distributors traded 56,045 shares to close at $1.85 for a gain of 9 cents for a new 52 weeks’ high, Lasco Financial Services traded 172,500 units to close at $1.98 after gaining 8 cents. Lasco Manufacturing with 1,285,181 units changing hands, closed at $2.10 and Eppley 2019 preference share traded 2,000 units at $6.10 up 10 cents to a new 52 weeks’ high.
No stock rose 1 fell on TTSE
Trading in the overall market ended with only 5 securities changing hands on Monday with no stock rising, 1 declining and 4 traded with the price unchanged. The level of trading was very low with a total of only 14,355 shares traded, valued at $755,372.
At the close of the market, the Composite Index fell 0.02 points to close at 1,151.29, the All T&T Index lost 0.05 points to 1,958.22 and the Cross Listed Index remained at 45.17.
Declines| Republic Bank ended with only 40 shares changing hands with a fall of 1 cent to $114.97.
Firm Trades| ANSA McAL with 7,070 shares with a value of $475,457 and ended at $67.25, First Citizens Bank closed at $35 with 6,451 shares changing hands valued at $225,781, Massy Holdings closed with just 77 shares changing hands at $63.09 and Scotiabank traded unchanged to end at $62.31 with 717 shares.
IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator had 4 stocks with the bid higher than their last selling prices and 5 stocks with offers that were lower.
Scotia gives & takes away 1,000 points
On Friday Scotia Group gave a big boost to the main market index with good volume, this morning the banking group stock fell traded at $24 and swiped a big hole in the index after the market was up 354 points on the all Jamaica composite Index and 317 points on the JSE Market Index.
In the process the All Jamaica Index trades at 110,642.78 down 1,178.70 points JSE Market Index fell 1,054.54 points to 99,937.99. The combined index lost 998.45 to be at 103,638.50 and the junior market index was at 1,038.91 dropping 0.47 points.
In main market trading Grace Kennedy dropped $1 to $63, Gleaner is yet to trade but has a bid of $1.88 and an offer at $3.50 RJR on the on the other hand traded at $4. Jamaica Producers traded up to $20 by gaining $1.15, National Commercial Bank traded 37,512 shares at $30.50 and had an offer at $32.50 to sell 245 units, but the only other offers posted are at $33 to sell 503 units and at $60 for 2,000 shares.
8 stocks have declined at 10.45 am versus only 9 that rose out of just 21 that have traded carrying a volume of 1,432,928 units.
