For our full re­search and analy­sis, please vis­it www.bour­sein­vest­ment.com

This week, we at Bourse re­cap the per­for­mance of lo­cal stock mar­ket for the first nine-months of 2025 (9M2025). De­spite gen­er­al­ly im­prov­ing earn­ings, lo­cal eq­ui­ty mar­kets have con­tin­ued a mul­ti-year slide, damp­ened by weak­er in­vestor sen­ti­ment and oth­er dri­vers. Will the lo­cal mar­ket con­tin­ue its down­ward mo­men­tum or could new de­vel­op­ments and/or shifts in in­vestor sen­ti­ment al­ter the course in the up­com­ing months? We dis­cuss be­low.

TTCI Lags Re­gion­al Peers

Over the pe­ri­od FY2022 to the first nine months of 2025, the Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Com­pos­ite In­dex (TTCI) ex­tend­ed its mul­ti-year de­cline since peak­ing in FY2021. The TTCI con­tract­ed by 8.6% in 9M2025, mov­ing from a lev­el of 1,073 to 981, as in­vestor sen­ti­ment re­mained sub­dued.

In con­trast, Bar­ba­dos BSE Com­pos­ite In­dex main­tained rel­a­tive re­silience, dis­play­ing three years of pos­i­tive growth from FY2022 to FY2024 be­fore eas­ing slight­ly in 9M2025 (-1.9%). Mean­while, Ja­maica’s Mar­ket In­dex re­mained in neg­a­tive ter­ri­to­ry through­out FY2021-FY2023, be­fore a mod­est re­bound in FY2024 (+3.1%), but slipped again in 9M2025, down 3.2%. Over­all, the TTCI un­der­per­formed rel­a­tive to its re­gion­al peers, which showed in­ter­mit­tent signs of re­cov­ery amid broad­er mar­ket chal­lenges.

TTCI Ma­jor Movers

AS Bry­dens and Sons Hold­ings (AS­BH), a new­ly list­ed stock on the ex­change (Au­gust 29th, 2025) led gains, ap­pre­ci­at­ing an im­pres­sive 109.6% since list­ing. Fol­lowed by LJ Williams ‘B’ (LJWB) which gained 57.3% on im­proved sales rev­enue, while Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed (PLD) in­creased 22.0% due to im­proved earn­ings. Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (PHL) ad­vanced 20.1%, due to in­vestor in­ter­est stem­ming from the AGL ac­qui­si­tion of­fer. Unilever (UCL) moved 19.0%. high­er.

Ma­jor de­clin­ers for 9M2025 in­clud­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go NGL Lim­it­ed (NGL ↓ 43.6%), Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML ↓ 38.3%), ANSA MCAL Lim­it­ed (AM­CL ↓ 32.9%), One Caribbean Me­dia Lim­it­ed (OCM ↓ 30.9%) and West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (WCO ↓ 29.3%).

Trad­ing Ac­tiv­i­ty Re­cov­er

Trad­ing ac­tiv­i­ty on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change (TTSE) showed signs of re­cov­ery af­ter a pe­ri­od of de­cline. For the first nine months of 2025, to­tal vol­ume trad­ed reached 88.2M shares, with a cor­re­spond­ing val­ue of $659.9M. This rep­re­sent­ed a 28.9% in­crease com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2024, though still down 48.9% from the peak of $1.29B record­ed in 9M2022.

For the third quar­ter (Jul-Sept 2025), both trad­ing vol­ume and val­ue record­ed strong growth. To­tal vol­ume surged 131%, ris­ing from 19.2M to 44.3M shares, while the val­ue trad­ed climbed 97% to $308.4M, up from $156.3M in the same pe­ri­od last year. On the First Tier Mar­ket, MASSY Hold­ings Ltd. (MASSY) led trad­ing ac­tiv­i­ty with 26.1M shares val­ued at $101.5M, fol­lowed by NCB Fi­nan­cial Group Ltd. (NCBFG), which trad­ed 7.4M shares worth $14.2M for the third quar­ter.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Com­pos­ite In­dex (TTCI) over­all mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion fell from a high of $142.8B in FY2021 to $95.2B in 9M2025, rep­re­sent­ing a cu­mu­la­tive de­cline of 33.3%.

The Bank­ing sec­tor, which con­sti­tutes 56.0% of the to­tal in­dex val­ue on the TTSE, faced a 7.3% re­duc­tion from $57.5B in 2024 to $53.3M in 9M2025. Oth­er sec­tors record­ed de­clines over the pe­ri­od in­clud­ing En­er­gy (-43.6%), Man­u­fac­tur­ing I & II (-23.5%), Con­glom­er­ates (-18.6%) and Non-bank­ing Fi­nance (-9.1%). These sec­tors have been on a steady de­cline be­gin­ning in 2021, how­ev­er, the Trad­ing and Prop­er­ty sec­tors com­bined ex­pe­ri­enced a growth of 70% over the same pe­ri­od and have gained 227.9% since FY2021.

As­set Levy

The FY2026 Bud­get pro­pos­es an As­set Levy of 0.25% on the as­sets of com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, ex­clud­ing those lo­cat­ed with­in Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones. Ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CBTT), to­tal as­sets of com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ers amount­ed to ap­prox­i­mate­ly $210B in FY2024, ris­ing by 5.1% to $221B as at June 2025.

The in­tro­duc­tion of this levy could mod­est­ly re­duce cor­po­rate earn­ings and, by ex­ten­sion, div­i­dend dis­tri­b­u­tions to share­hold­ers. Among pub­licly-list­ed bank­ing in­sti­tu­tions, Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL) and First Cit­i­zens Group Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings (FCGFH) held Trinidad and To­ba­go–based as­sets of rough­ly $56B and $37B, re­spec­tive­ly, as at June 2025. Based on these fig­ures, the es­ti­mat­ed levy would amount to rough­ly $140M for RFHL and $93M for FCGFH, equiv­a­lent to ap­prox­i­mate­ly $0.85 and $0.37 per share.

Over time, en­ti­ties may seek to off­set this ad­di­tion­al cost through var­i­ous mea­sures.

In­vestor Con­sid­er­a­tions and Out­look

Lo­cal eq­ui­ty per­for­mance has been con­strained by broad­er macro­eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, though earn­ings from sev­er­al ma­jor com­pa­nies on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change (TTSE) have re­mained gen­er­al­ly re­silient. The In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) in its World Eco­nom­ic Out­look (Oc­to­ber 2025) projects 1.0% GDP growth for 2025 and 1.2% in 2026. The Min­istry of Fi­nance in its 2025 Re­view of the Econ­o­my projects re­al GDP con­trac­tion of 0.8% in FY2025. As an en­er­gy-de­pen­dent econ­o­my, T&T’s con­ser­v­a­tive medi­um-term pro­duc­tion out­look con­tin­ues to in­flu­ence in­vestor con­fi­dence and over­all eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

Ris­ing liv­ing costs and fis­cal mea­sures an­nounced in the re­cent FY2026 Bud­get, in­clud­ing high­er ex­cise du­ties, se­lect fee in­creas­es, the in­tro­duc­tion of com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge and an as­set levy to banks and in­sur­ers, could weigh on dis­pos­able in­come, damp­en con­sumer spend­ing, and ul­ti­mate­ly af­fect cor­po­rate earn­ings and in­vestor sen­ti­ment. Mean­while, the pro­posed state-spon­sored Re­al Es­tate In­vest­ment Trust (RE­IT), which will list in­come-gen­er­at­ing state as­sets on the TTSE in 2026, could serve as a cat­a­lyst to deep­en the cap­i­tal mar­ket and boost in­vestor par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Are Lo­cal Eq­ui­ties at­trac­tive?

Lo­cal eq­ui­ties cur­rent­ly con­tin­ue to trade at rel­a­tive­ly at­trac­tive lev­els, with val­u­a­tions for sev­er­al blue-chip com­pa­nies ap­pear­ing in­ex­pen­sive rel­a­tive to his­tor­i­cal av­er­ages. Div­i­dend yields have al­so strength­ened fol­low­ing the broad mar­ket repric­ing, of­fer­ing po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­come-ori­ent­ed in­vestors. On av­er­age, bank­ing sec­tor div­i­dend yields cur­rent­ly range from 3.3% to 6.7%.

No­tably, many list­ed firms—such as RFHL and MASSY de­rive a sig­nif­i­cant share of earn­ings from re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al op­er­a­tions, of­fer­ing built-in ge­o­graph­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion that can help buffer do­mes­tic eco­nom­ic risks. This re­gion­al ex­po­sure, com­bined with re­silient earn­ings per­for­mance and com­pelling val­u­a­tions, sug­gests se­lec­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties re­main with­in the lo­cal mar­ket for in­vestors with a long-term hori­zon.

As al­ways, it makes sense to have a con­ver­sa­tion with an ex­pe­ri­enced in­vest­ment ad­vi­sor – like Bourse – to help in mak­ing the most in­formed in­vest­ment de­ci­sions.