“Stock market up, April to June 2011” – Bank of Jamaica

According to the recently published Bank of Jamaica Quarterly Monetary Policy Report, the stock market performed much better during the April to June 2011 quarter, compared to the prior quarter.

The Finance and Other category showed the greatest growth with average price appreciation of 25.8% and 117.6% respectively, while the Manufacturing, and Communications showed the greatest depreciation among the top ten declining stocks with average declines of 20.2% and 25.1% respectively for the quarter.

Relative to the prior quarter, all the JSE indices recorded higher growth for the June 2011 quarter, with the exception of the Cross Listed Index. Notably, the Junior Market Index recorded the sharpest increase of 35.9 per cent, relative to a decline of 3.8 per cent in the March 2011 quarter.

The improved performance of the indices was also reflected in an acceleration in the volume of stocks traded, a slower rate of decline in the value of transactions and a positive outturn for the advance-to-decline ratio during the review quarter. For the quarter the volume of stocks traded grew by 22.8 per cent relative to 2.0 per cent in the previous quarter. The value of transactions declined marginally by 1.8 per cent, following a sharp reduction of 23.4 per cent for the March 2011 quarter. Also, for the June 2011 quarter, the advance-to-decline ratio was 25:10 compared to a ratio of 17:16 for the prior quarter.

Declining Stocks for the Apr to Jun 2011 period