Blog Page — Page 1437

NIR down but so is IMF debt

September 9, 2013 by IC Insider.com

The latest data from the Bank of Jamaica shows a decline in the net international reserves for the country to US$882 million at the end of August, down from US$930 million at the end of July, a decline of US$48 million.

The decline was mainly due to the central bank paying off US$77 million to the IMF thus reducing the amount due to them from US$861 to US$783 million. The gross reserves stands at US$1.687 billion or US$125.5 million less than at the end of July.

The gross NIR now represents 11.22 weeks of estimated Goods & Services Imports.

The country now enters a period that is traditionally characterised by lower inflows and higher demand. However, with the Highway 2000 Ocho Rios leg to resume, the next few months should be seeing capital inflows in connection with this project, which should help augment other inflows to the system.

Related Posts | NIR surpasses $1 billion

Filed Under: Economy, FX Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Economy, GOJ, NIR

CWJ: Making headway but slowly

September 9, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Buying market share can be a costly and take years. Cable & Wireless (C&W) has found this this out the hard way. Once the only telecom operator in the Jamaican market, they have seen their dominance fade sharply to Digicel, the relatively new comer to the scene and it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to win back market share.

Once highly profitable, C&W has suffered years of losses as they changed one CEO after another in search of the one that could stabilize and then grow the business. So far investors have not seen any returns for the patience. The early months of the last fiscal year looked as if it could be the turning point as the company aggressively went after new customers with a bold move of slashing mobile rates from $9 on prepaid calls to $2.99 per minute, just ahead of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) forcing a cut of interconnection rates from $12 per minute to $5. At the end of the fiscal year to March, the company reported some success in boosting mobile revenues by 14 percent and mobile customers by 16 percent, but still reported a $5 billion loss, inclusive of redundancy payment to staff flowing from outsourcing of the maintenance area of its business as a part of a cost cutting strategy.

In the quarterly report for June this year, C&W reports continued growth in the mobile business but not for landline where it suffers from contraction, some of it, due to customers opting for mobile alone now that the rates are low.

C&W fight is on two fronts, one is cost cutting and the other is raising revenues. So far they seem to be making headways on both, albeit not fast enough. Revenues are down for the 2013 fiscal year partly as a result of reduction input payments for call termination which fell by $1.5 billion while revenues fell by $1.3 billion. The company also absorbed the additional telephone tax until March this year, estimated by IC Insider at approximately half a billion dollars.

June quarter | According to the company, active mobile subscribers are up 22 percent in the latest quarter and mobile revenues by 10 percent compared with June 2012 quarter. This revenue growth is remarkable when considered against the back drop of rates that were much higher for two months of the 2012 period and with last year’s June report showing a 21 percent jump in revenues. While growth in number of active subscribers is important as it will grow revenues, boosting the profit margin can be just as effective and may even be less costly. Here C&W is hoping that the reduction in termination rates will see most of its customers spending around the same as before thus boosting net income. The numbers from profit results since last year suggest that is happening, excluding land lines, but that could well be people using cellular as the cost differential is not all that great any more.

Legacy carriers | To be fair to C&W, legacy carriers worldwide have suffered severely from competition as the market has changed dramatically. Not only is mobile big, but the Internet has had a major impact on cross border communication, robbing telecom companies of high profit margin revenues.

The company’s focus on increased subscribers contributed to a 60 percent rise in acquisition cost for free hand sets. It’s costly but seems to be delivering results in growing the mobile business, which it badly needs since the land line business is mature.

Quarterly numbers | In spite of the much touted progress made in the mobile segment, results for the first fiscal quarter have not shown much of the benefits. Revenues are down from $4.8 billion to $4.35 billion some of which is due to the interconnection rate reduction as well as a cut in rates for prepaid customers ahead of the official start of the new termination rate from $5 to $1.10.

Cost is up in some areas and the company speaks of a 25 percent jump in material spend to continuously improve the network. What is known is that administrative cost is up sharply both for the quarter as well as for the fiscal year which ended in March. The cost in this area is up to $1.77 billion from $1.5 billion in the last year June quarter and $5.8 billion for the full year. Labour cost is down due to reduction in staffing mid-way in the June quarter, so there is more to come for this item. The sudden jump in administrative and cost suggest that it is not permanent. In support of this, a look at the cash flow indicates what is happening. Two items amounting to $715 million accounted for the bulk of the increase, but these will not be ongoing; a $200 million in writing down a long term loan for loss on exchange and $515 million in provisioning for site restoration due to hurricane damage.

C&W reported a loss of $827 million in the June quarter, a big increase over the $430 million lost in 2012. For revenues alone to wipe this out would require a net 20 percent increase but a combination of a revenue increase and cost reduction could do the trick. Much is hinging on the reduced termination rates to pump more of the revenues to the bottom-line. The September quarter may be very revealing in pointing the way forward.

Of course, the C&W balance sheet is not looking pretty with negative equity of $20.5 billion and loans of $32 billion due to group companies and third parties. Current liabilities is at $10 billion while current assets are at $7.5 billion — not the kind of ratio that one would want to see under normal circumstances. But then, this is not your normal company.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results Tagged With: C&WJ, JSE Company

T&T PEs: Better buys ahead

September 6, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 6th September 2013 | The PE Ratio chart for stocks trading on the Trinidad stock market has two movements to note for the week just ended.

Trinidad Cement fell sharply during the week to below $2 but the stock has become a more attractive buy with a potential return of 567% versus 350% last week. However, based on the closing bids and offers this stock could drop some more before reversing the recent decline.

Guardian Holdings fell to $14 this week, moving the potential gain from 250% last week to 270% this week and remains an attractive buy. Elsewhere in the market, not much has changed from this past week as prices remained fairly stable.

Below are charts that graphically show how TTSE stocks are ranked by PE Ratio potential.

Filed Under: Company News, Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: Guardian Holdings, PE Ratios, TCL, TTSE

FX: Rates higher but buys more than sales

September 6, 2013 by IC Insider.com

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Friday, 6th September 2013 | Although overall buying was more than selling in the forex market, all rates increased for buying and selling of all three main foreign currencies. Buying amounted to $39.97 million while selling was well below, at US$32.35 million.

Authorised dealers bought US$32,773,161 at an average of $101.642 at 21 cents higher than on Thursday and sold US$28,459,081 at an average of $102.231, an increase of 8 cents. For the Canadian, buying amounted to C$1,027,853 at an average of $96.334 as the rate at the end was up 81 cents and they sold C$691,584 at $98.5283 an increase of 98 cents. The total amount of the British Pound purchased was £3,248,021 as the rate was up $1.13 to end at $158.762, while £1,911,264 was sold at an increase of 39 cents to $160.469.

Highs & lows | The highest buying rate for the US dollar is $102.95 an increase of 20 cents over Thursday’s rate, and the lowest buying rate $85.50 or $1.33 more. There was no change in the highest selling rate of $107.86 but the lowest selling rate dropped $2.05 to $84.17.

In the case of the Canadian, the highest buying rate was up $1.15 to $98.85 as the lowest buying rate inched up a mere 8 cents to $78.60. There was no change to the highest selling rate of $101.44 as the lowest selling rate moved up 70 cents to $94.70.

The British Pound saw declines in three of the high and low rates with the highest buying rate falling 87 cents to $160.90 and the lowest buying rate easing 12 cents to $129.36. The highest selling rate dropped sharply by $4.42 to end at $162.50 but the lowest selling rate went up $2.20 to $155.85 at the end of the day.

Filed Under: FX Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, FX Market, Trading Activity

JSE: Advances ahead of declines

September 6, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 6th September 2013 | Advancing stocks outpaced declining ones for the 4th day running, but volumes remain low even as supplies continue to dwindle for many of the more popular issues. The main indices climbed at the end of trading with the all Jamaica index up 434.93 to 84,970.58 and the main market index up 247.20 to 84,840.69. While the main market indices closed at the second highest levels for the week, the junior market index slipped marginally by 1.74 to 784.67. Investors traded 5.76 million units valued at $30.73 million on a day when 24 stocks traded, 9 stocks advanced to 4 that declined in price.

Post Carreras’ annual general meeting, which was held on Wednesday, buying came in for the stock as it traded 112,924 units valued at $5,262,988 and closed at $47 up $1.50; Caribbean Cement commenced the rebound on Friday with 571,692 units valued at $1,257,722 trading up by 17 cents to close at $2.20; Grace Kennedy did not trade much with 29,204 units valued at $1,645,283 as the price remained firm, at $57; Jamaica Money Market Brokers was the day’s big trade with 2,017,957 units valued at $17,116,815 as the price closed up 49 cents, to close at $8.50. Kingston Wharves added 66,755 to the total and closed firm at $7, the stock seems to be under some selling pressure. Mayberry Investments, 88,385 units resulted in a 5 cents gain as it closed at $2.65. National Commercial Bank continues the fight to move forward as there is a decent gap between buyers and sellers with just 27,255 changing hands to close at $18.55. Sagicor Life chipped in with 59,727 units as the price closed at $8.50 up 23 cents; Scotia Group Jamaica participated in the low volume that traded with just 19,859 units as the price closed at $21.50 for a gain of 24 cents while its sub, Scotia Investments, exchanged a mere 14,494 units but closed up $1.30 at $27.50. Proven Investments 8% accounted for 834,650 trading firm at $5.09 as $4.25 million was invested in it.

Junior Market | The market had good participation from 7 stocks as 8 stocks traded on the final trading day of the week. Caribbean Cream exchanged 343,901 units as the price closed firm at $1.02; Caribbean Producers, fresh from recent full year results which showed a big jump in the last quarter’s earnings is gaining some traction resulting in 214,000 units trading with the price moving up 8 cents to $2.11 at the close; Consolidated Bakeries chipped in with 16,360 units to close firm at $1.40; General Accident 160,632 units resulted in a 2 cents fall in price at the end of trading to $1.75; Lasco Distributors 44,960 units traded but closed at $1.50 off by 10 cents while Lasco Financial Services had a busy day with 1,009,433 units trading as the price gave up 5 cents at the close $1.30 at the end. Lasco Manufacturing 69,386 units as the price gained 5 cents at $1.60 at the end.

IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator has weakened somewhat and shows that bids for 5 stocks were higher with 4 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

Filed Under: JSE Main Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, JSE Company, Trading Activity

TTSE: 2 new 52 weeks highs, one low

September 6, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Friday, 6th September 2013 | The amount of money invested in stocks on the Trinidad & Tobago Stock Market climbed over Thursday’s low level resulting 13 securities changing hands of which 4 advanced, 3 declined and 6 traded firm. Trading levels remain low with just 185,122 units valued at $3,361,803.

Main trades | The main traded stocks include, Guardian Holdings with 23,038 units for a value of $322,532 as the stock, which has been under selling pressure of late, dropped a $1 to close at $14, a new 52 weeks low but making it vastly more attractive than a few weeks ago. Jamaica Money Market Brokers which traded high volumes in Jamaica, delivered only 20,000 shares valued at $10,000. Neal & Massy Holdings contributed 10,300 shares with a value of $576,700 as the price closed up a cent at $56; Sagicor Financial had 4,600 units which closed firm at $6.85; while Trinidad Cement added 9,900 shares valued at $19,753 as the price slipped further to close at $1.98 but there were 25,000 units on offer at $1.95 and no bids at the close.

West Indian Tobacco with a small 57 shares gained 95 cents to end the day at $118.00. Clico Investment Fund, which continues to be quite liquid, had 108,160 shares valued at $2,326,572 trading as the price remained firm at $21.51.

New highs | Agostini’s traded 1,000 units and closed 25 cents higher at $17.25 for a new 52 weeks high; Prestige Holdings also made a new 52 weeks high when it traded 420 units gained 5 cents to $9.40.

IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows that there were no bids for stocks that were higher with 3 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

Filed Under: Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, Trading Activity, TTSE

FX: Buying greater than sales

September 5, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Thursday, 5th September, 2013 | In today’s forex trading, authorised dealers bought US$26.3 million and sold US$23.68 million as the selling rate for the US dollar fell slightly while the buying rates eased up a few cents. The Canadian selling rate fell and the buying rate rose as the Pound selling rate went up and the buying rate fell.

Authorised dealers bought US$21,039,750 for 10 cents more than on Wednesday’s rate at $101.433 and sold US$20,414,335 at 2 cents less at $102.154. Dealers bought C$1,022,519 at $95.5248 which is 31 cent higher than the closing rate on Wednesday and sold C$783,534 at $97.5485 at 55 cents less. The amount of Pound sterling bought was £2,632,515 at $157.6334 costing 25 cents less than Wednesday’s rate and the amount sold was £1,316,063 at $160.075 at 26 cents more.

The highest buying rate for the US dollar was $102.75 down 25 cents while the currency was bought as low as $84.17, the same rate as the day before. The selling selling high of $107.86 remained unchanged and the selling low at $86.22 for a $2.18 increase.

The highest buying rate for the Canadian dollar was $97.70, up 20 cents and sold as low as $78.52, up 17 cents. Selling was as high as $101.44 reflecting an increase of 22 cents and as low as $94.00, down 65 cents.

The highest buying rate for the Pound sterling was 161.77 up $1.57 and as low as $129.48 down $5.81. Selling was high as $166.92 up $4.76 and sold as low as $153.65 down 50 cents.

Image courtesy of Marcus/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: FX Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, FX Market, Trading Activity

JSE: Advancers up but trading not strong

September 5, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Thursday, 5th September 2013 | The main market indices fell on Thursday as the junior index moved up with 11 stock prices gaining to 6 that fell as 2,761,996 units traded valued at $16.1 million continuing a light period of trading for a number of days since August. The all Jamaica index fell 313.07 to 84,535.65, the Main index was down 177.94 to close at 84,593.49 and the junior market index gained 6.24 to close at 786.41.

Barita Investments seems to be attracting a little interest as it traded 18,156 at $2.50 while Caribbean Cement Company could have bottomed as it traded 121,158 units to close at $2.03 an increase of 3 cents; Gleaner Company logged 605,000 units at a firm price of $1.20; Jamaica Money Market Brokers kicked in with a strong 1,140,850 units as the price closed 1 cent up at $8; Jamaica Stock Exchange 11,000 units resulted in a 5 cent drop to the IPO price of $2.85; Kingston Wharves traded 13,400 firm at $7; National Commercial Bank still struggling to move forward traded 117,295 shares at $18.55 up 5 cents; Pan Jamaican Investment Trust accounted for 13,415 units and closed at $51.42; Scotia Group Jamaica made good with 41,757 units and closed at $21.26 a gain of 6 cents while Seprod contributed 20,000 units at $13.

Access Financial Services had 100,000 shares being exchanged as the price closed at $8.38 up 18 cents; Consolidated Bakeries chipped in with 26,916 units to close at $1.40 down 5 cents; Cargo Handlers was up $1 to $14, a new all-time high.

General Accident Insurance traded 56,000 units at $1.77 for a 6 cents gain as Lasco Distributors 47,420 units traded firm at $1.50; Lasco Financial Services 109,450 units closed at $1.40 down 2 cents and Lasco Manufacturing 35,475 units with the price closing at $1.65 up 2 cents.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows that bids for 6 stocks were higher with 2 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

Filed Under: JSE Main Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, JSE Company, Trading Activity

TTSE: Poor T&T stock market

September 5, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Thursday, 5th September, 2013 | Trading picked up on Thursday on the Trinidad Exchange with 10 securities changing hands of which 2 advanced, 3 declined and 5 traded firm as a mere 42,969 units changed hands valued at $883,081.

Stocks trading include Unilever Caribbean, which gained 1 cent to end the day at $55.41, a new 52 weeks high as 750 units changed hands. Trinidad Cement with only 10,400 units valued at $23,096 as the price lost 16 cents to close at $2.14. Still under selling pressure due to profit taking, the stock closed with no stock on the bid and 159,187 on offer at $2.10.

Jamaica Money Market Brokers traded 2,800 shares firm at 50 cents. Republic Bank traded 1,153 units valued at $126,853 at $110.02 up a cent. Clico Investment Fund posted a volume of 22,815 shares valued at $490,751; the price closed firm at $21.51. One Caribbean Media 880 units as the price closed firm at $18.02. Scotia Bank traded 2,300 units with firm price at $70.01 for a value of $161,023.

IC bid-offer Indicator | At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows that there were no stocks with bids that were higher with 3 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

Image courtesy of Photokanok/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: Stock Market, TTSE Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, Trading Activity, TTSE

JSE: Advancers ahead, indices down

September 4, 2013 by IC Insider.com

Wednesday, 4th September 2013 | Trading activity on the Jamaica Stock Exchange was moderate notwithstanding the 4.667 million units which traded at a value of $25.7 million. Trading took place in only 25 stocks with 1 from the preference sector resulting in 8 stocks advancing to 4 declining. The index for the main market fell as the all Jamaica index being off the most by 1,041.87 to close at 84,848.72 and the main market index off 592.14 to end at 84,771.43. As indicated on Tuesday, this was expected to happen with that day’s movement in Scotia Group hitting $23.49 but closing at $22. Today, it closed at $21.20, giving back all the gains it had on Tuesday.

Caribbean Cement traded 38,155 units firm at $2; Grace traded 10,905 units at $56.60 up 10 cents; Jamaica Money Market Brokers exchanged 172,923 units and closed firm at $8; National Commercial Bank traded 87,412 units at $18.55 up 5 cents, while Sagicor Life enjoyed a big day with 865,150 units gained 44 cents to close at $8.60; Scotia Group traded 127,072 to closed down 80 cents at $21.20; Scotia Investments chipped in with 34,800 to close at $26.20 up 4 cents and Proven preference shares delivered 1,465,850 units firm at $5.09.

The junior market index slipped 2.20 to close at 780.17. Caribbean Creams traded 320,700 units to close at $1.02 a gain of 2 cents; Caribbean Producers exchanged 510,000 units firm at $2.03; General Accident chipped in with 66,000 units to close at $1.71 for a 1 cent gain; Jamaican Teas lost 20 cents to close at $4.20 as it traded 22,043 units; Lasco Financial Services traded 297,535 and closed at $1.42, down 2 cents, while Lasco manufacturing closed at $1.60 a 2 cents decline with 277,428 units and Paramount Trading 66,305 units firm at $3.30.

IC bid-offer Indicator| At the end of trading, the Investor’s Choice bid-offer indicator shows that bids for 5 stocks were higher with 2 stocks having offers lower than their last selling price.

Filed Under: JSE Main Market, Stock Market Tagged With: Daily Trading, JSE Company, Trading Activity