Jamaican stock market doubles region in 2017

The Jamaican stock market made gains which more than doubled its Caribbean counterparts over a year.

Entities are taking note and investing funds into the economy from overseas. A case study for its performance is Barbadian based Fortress Fund Managers Limited, a company listed in Barbados with investments in regional and international stocks.

Fortress registered the highest returns from its Jamaica portfolio in comparison to its regional counterparts or even its international stock portfolio over a year.

“Among Caribbean markets, Jamaica posted healthy gains, Trinidad rose slightly, and Barbados experienced a small decline, said Fortess in its financial results released this month for the quarter ending December 2017.

Over 12 months the Jamaica index of stocks held by Fortress increased 55 per cent, 18.7 per cent for Barbadian stocks and 3.4 per cent for Trinidad based stocks. Also its international investment portfolio outside the region increased 23 per cent.

Jamaica continued to see very positive sentiment in its stock market which ended the 2017 year with the initial public offerings (IPO) of Victoria Mutual and Wisynco. There have been other IPOs since that time, including Elite Diagnostics, GWest, Fosrich along with preference share offers.