Durrant Pate/Contributor

The Jamaican stock market continued its soft advance last week, coming into this week, giving renewed optimism for equity investors.

The market extended gains from the prior week, with the main Combined Index climbing 2.0%, with NCB Financial Group (NCBFG) and Carerras largely contributing to its upswing. 

Despite this, overall market activity saw decliners outpacing advancers (62 versus 52), suggesting that growth in the index was concentrated among a handful of heavily weighted names rather than reflecting a rally across the entire market.

Furthermore, market activity pulled back on both measures: value traded fell 23.4% to J$1.02 billion while volume dropped 33.4% to 133.28 million units. Elite Diagnostic (23.7%), TransJamaican Highway (TJH) advanced by 13.6%, and 138 Student Living Jamaica (6.2%) were the top three traded stocks. 

Two biggest advancers 

Renewed large-cap strength drove index performance, with the two biggest advancers each carried by a handful of stocks. The USD Equities Index led, rising 6.4% in a near one-stock story, as TJH USD at 65.0% of index weight, rose 5.8% to account for most of the gain. 

The JSE Select Index followed closely behind, rising 5.6%, led by NCBFG (+15.6%), Carreras (+7.2%) and TJH (+5.8%). Absent any company-specific news, the stocks’ moves appear to reflect improved sentiment. 

The lone decliner was the JSE Junior Market (-2.4%), dragged by Cargo Handlers (-10.4%), Future Energy Source Company (-8.3%) and Mailpac (-7.9%). The price decline came despite Mailpac’s July 3rd Q1 results showing revenue rising by 10.3% year-over-year and earnings growing 6.0% to J$64.6 million despite its tax charge nearly doubling. 

For the period ending June 30, 2026, the market rallied, reflecting strong investor sentiment toward key stocks. The Combined Index advanced 9.8% for the first half of the year (H1 2026), driven by earnings growth at select companies—notably West Indies Petroleum, NCBFG, Carreras, and TJH, whose share prices rose 690.8%, 71.2%, 55.5%, and 73.3%, respectively. 

Overall, seven of the major indices rose during the period, led by the Select Index (+22.7%) and USD Index (+16.1%). Only the JSE Junior Market (-9.2%) and Cross-Listed (-2.4%) indices retreated for the half-year of 2026.