Seems like a dividend drought is coming!  Several financial institutions have joined the line and announced – no dividends!

So NCB had been catching a lot of heat recently because they haven’t paid dividends in over two years. Investors are frustrated and the stock has taken a beating.

But NCB isn’t the only company to have paused dividends recently.  Access Financial, JMMB and Barita have all skipped dividend declarations.

And the Jamaica Stock Exchange itself just passed on declaring a dividend for the first time since it started paying dividends in 2015.

The JSE says it’s facing the same struggle as every other company… a “challenging economic environment”.

The JSE earns a small income on every transaction on the market, plus it collects fees from the Jamaica Central Securities Depository and JCSD Trustee Services, which are subsidiaries. 

If you’ve been paying attention, there’s only been one IPO so far this year, and the overall stock market is down.

Then there’s all this talk of Basel three, which is an international regulatory standard that requires financial institutions to hold more cash on their books. Plus there’s still some fear of a recession, which would mean institutions would need more capital on hand.

Not to mention the ever-present high-interest rates.

So the down market continues, and investors will have to continue to weather the storm.

And that’s the bottom line.