For the first sev­en months of 2025, the Com­pos­ite In­dex of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change (TTSE) de­clined by 6.15 per cent, the All T&T In­dex was down by 7.81 per cent and the Cross-List­ed In­dex slipped by 0.79 per cent, ac­cord­ing to the WISE Week­ly re­port for Ju­ly 31. The on­ly one of the four in­dices that in­creased for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to Ju­ly 31, 2025 was the SME (Small and Medi­um-sized En­ter­pris­es) In­dex, which ad­vanced by 8.31 per cent.

The re­sults of the TTSE in­dices for the year to day in­di­cate that the lo­cal stock mar­ket is in its fouth year of steep de­clines, with the last pos­i­tive year be­ing 2021, when the Com­pos­ite, All T&T and Cross-List­ed in­dices record­ed in­creas­es of 13.14 per cent, 17.61 per cent and 3 per cent re­spec­tive­ly, when com­pared to the pri­or year. The SME in­dex fell by 33.13 per cent in 2021.

In her re­view of the 2024 per­for­mance of the lo­cal stock mar­ket in the TTSE’s an­nu­al re­port for last year, the stock ex­change’s CEO, Eva Mitchell, stat­ed, “In 2024, the lo­cal eq­ui­ty mar­ket faced a chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ment, with most list­ed se­cu­ri­ties record­ing year-on-year price de­clines. This broad-based de­cline weighed heav­i­ly on the mar­ket in­dices.

“The Com­pos­ite In­dex fell by 11.60 per cent, clos­ing at 1,073.23, while the All T&T In­dex de­clined by 12.74 per cent, end­ing the year at 1,580.25. The Cross-List­ed In­dex al­so saw a con­trac­tion of 7.74 per cent, clos­ing at 74.28. No­tably, how­ev­er, the SME In­dex con­tin­ued its up­ward tra­jec­to­ry for a third con­sec­u­tive year, in­creas­ing by 30.91 per cent to end at 92.58.

“The to­tal num­ber of trades ex­e­cut­ed in the eq­ui­ty and mu­tu­al fund mar­kets de­clined by 9.34 per cent, dri­ven by a sim­i­lar drop of just over 9 per cent in ac­tiv­i­ty from both re­tail and in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors. De­spite this, the re­tail in­vestor seg­ment re­mained dom­i­nant, with its share of over­all trade ac­tiv­i­ty vir­tu­al­ly un­changed at 79.52 per cent, com­pared to 79.49 per cent in 2023.”

In 2023, the Com­pos­ite In­dex, de­creased by 8.87 per cent and the All T&T In­dex de­clined by 9.8 per cent to close at 1,214.05 and 1,811.02, re­spec­tive­ly. The Cross-List­ed in­dex al­so fell record­ing a 4.75 per cent de­crease to close at 80.51. How­ev­er, the SME in­dex grew for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year to close at 70.72 rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of 38.91 per cent.

In 2022, the Com­pos­ite In­dex how­ev­er, de­creased by 11.01 per cent and the All T&T In­dex de­creased by 3.69 per cent to close at 1,332.15 and 2,007.80, re­spec­tive­ly. The Cross-List­ed in­dex record­ed the largest year-over-year de­cline of 29.90 per cent to close at 85.26. Mean­while, the SME in­dex re­cov­ered from three years of con­sec­u­tive year-over-year de­clines, to close at 50.91 rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of 18.34 per cent.

Even a sig­nif­i­cant as­pect of the bond mar­ket was low­er in 2024 than in 2023.

“Trad­ing ac­tiv­i­ty in the Gov­ern­ment Bond Mar­ket con­tract­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with to­tal trade val­ue falling by 79.13 per cent to $96.75 mil­lion. This de­cline was part­ly due to the ma­tu­ri­ty of the $1.5 bil­lion Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad & To­ba­go 7.75 per cent (D233) bond, which alone ac­count­ed for 27 per cent of the 2023 to­tal trade val­ue.

“Con­verse­ly, the Cor­po­rate Bond Mar­ket showed en­cour­ag­ing signs of ac­tiv­i­ty. In March 2024, the $400 mil­lion NIF 4.50% bond 09.02.2029 was suc­cess­ful­ly list­ed. The mar­ket wit­nessed a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in trade val­ue from $4.31 mil­lion in 2023 to $8.13 mil­lion in 2024, or 88.55 per cent, with NIF090830 ac­count­ing for 84.55 per cent of the 2024’s to­tal trade val­ue.”

It is al­so in­ter­est­ing to note that while the Com­pos­ite In­dex and the All T&T In­dex de­clined by 6.15 per cent and 7.81 per cent, re­spec­tive­ly, for the first sev­en months of 2025, both of those in­dices were down by 2.27 per cent and 2.64 per cent for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to April 25, 2025. So the point can­not be made that the change of Gov­ern­ment on April 28, 2025, ac­cen­tu­at­ed the de­cline of stocks trad­ed on the lo­cal mar­ket

Six of the eight stocks on the TTSE that the State owns shares in have de­clined year to date. A sig­nif­i­cant as­pect could of that de­cline could be that the stock mar­kets, as a whole, have been in de­cline for the first sev­en months 2025...and the three years pre­ceed­ing.

What can Cor­po­ra­tion Sole do

* Two of the eight com­pa­nies in which the State owns shares gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change rev­enue. That would be NGL, which owns a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd, and Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd (NEL), most of whose for­eign rev­enue comes from its 51 per cent share­hold­ing in Trin­gen.

If two of these State-con­trolled com­pa­nies earn for­eign rev­enue, it is not im­pos­si­ble for the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dra­dath Tan­coo, to di­rect both of those com­pa­nies to make div­i­dend pay­ments in US dol­lars;

* NGL has not paid a div­i­dend in sev­er­al years be­cause it has been re­quired to write down the val­ue of its share­hold­ing in Phoenix Park. But NGL re­ceived about US$6 mil­lion in div­i­dends from Phoenix Park in 2024. Would it be im­pos­si­ble for Phoenix Park to be the list­ed com­pa­ny and for NGL to be wound up? That would mean the share­hold­ers of NGL would have to swap their shares for a stake in Phoenix Park at an ap­pro­pri­ate ex­change ra­tio, sim­i­lar to the trans­ac­tion that is now tak­ing place be­tween Agos­ti­ni and Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd;

* The Gov­ern­ment should un­der­take the sale of the shares in An­gos­tu­ra now owned by Rumpro and Cli­co. That would gen­er­ate a size­able amount of US dol­lars for the Gov­ern­ment and would give the mi­nor­i­ty share­hold­ers of the rum and bit­ters com­pa­ny the op­tion of sell­ing their shares for US dol­lars as well; and

* The Gov­ern­ment should un­der­take the sale of 51 per cent of Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) and the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Plipde­co), as I can­not en­vis­age a strate­gic rea­son why the State needs to own a flour mill and the land­lord of the in­dus­tri­al es­tate and port at Point Lisas. In fact, as a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Plipde­co’s rev­enue is in US dol­lars, it could al­so start pay­ing div­i­dends in for­eign ex­change.

Dis­clo­sure: The au­thor of this com­men­tary owns shares in RFHL and NGL, two of the stocks men­tioned in this piece.