• Wall Street stocks rallied, and gold prices slid on Thursday as solid earnings from big tech bolstered investor risk appetite. All three major U.S. stock indexes began the month in positive territory, with upbeat quarterly results from Meta Platforms and Microsoft, benefiting the Nasdaq most, sending the tech-laden index up 2.3%.
• "Clearly sparking (Thursday's) rally was better-than-expected earnings from Microsoft and Meta, and once again calming some of the over-the-top recessionary worries that we were dealing with just a couple of weeks ago," said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group in Omaha. "But the good news is stocks have now recovered from the selloff after 'Liberation Day.'"
• U.S. President Donald Trump announced steep tariffs on April 2, which rattled world markets for much of last month. The dollar advanced as the yen took a hit after the Bank of Japan cut its growth forecasts due to uncertainties surrounding U.S. tariff policy. Trading was thin throughout Asia and Europe due to May Day holidays. There were no major announcements regarding trade negotiations following Trump's April 2 announcement.
• First quarter earnings season is well past its halfway point, with 325 companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 74% have beaten analyst expectations, according to LSEG. Apple and Amazon are due to report after the closing bell, the fifth and sixth members of the so-called "magnificent seven" to post quarterly results, leaving chipmaker Nvidia, which is expected to release its first-quarter earnings on May 28.
• "The reality is the economy is slowing but not dropping off a cliff, and some of these large tech companies are confirming that," Detrick added. "It's nice to talk about something besides tariffs, especially when it's backed by some solid earnings overall by some of the large tech companies." On the economic front, U.S. factory activity remained in contraction, while jobless claims increased more than analysts expected.

(Source: Reuters)

• Image Plus Consultants Limited (IPCL) recorded net profit of $43.93Mn for the financial year ended February 28, 2025, a 79.3% YoY decline from $211.93Mn in FY2023. A scan of IPCL’s income statement shows that lower revenues and rising costs caused the decline, even as the company continued its capital expansion strategy following its 2023 IPO.
• Revenues fell by 9.6% ($114.79Mn) to $1.08Bn, reflecting lower diagnostic volumes and pricing pressures across services, particularly X-Ray and CT scans, according to management. With revenues down, gross profit also slipped to $712.3Mn, down from $764.8Mn a year earlier.
• Reflecting higher professional fees and general inflation, administrative expenses also increased, rising by 9.7% YoY to $524.0Mn. More notably, depreciation and amortisation expenses nearly doubled to $108.4Mn, owing to the ramp-up of high-value imaging equipment, including MRI and mammography machines.
• With interest payments on a suite of new loans taken to fund equipment purchases and facility upgrades, finance costs doubled to $38.7Mn from $14.2Mn in FY2023.
• With lower revenues and higher expenses driving the 79.3% decline in net profit, earnings per share declined from J$0.17 in the prior year to $0.04.
• At market close on Wednesday, IPCL’s stock was J$1.03, down 1.9% from Tuesday and 39.9% since the start of the year. At its current price, IPCL trades at a P/E of 25.75x, which is above the Junior Market Health Sector average of 23.26x.

(Source: IPCL & NCBCM Research)

• Jamaica’s trade deficit at the end of 2024 decreased by 3.0% to US$5.42Bn when compared to US$5.59Bn in 2023 according to data from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN). The decline was driven by lower import spending outweighing lower exports.
• For the full year of 2024, Jamaica’s spending on imports totalled US$7.28Bn, down US$0.30Bn (4.0%), while the country earned approximately US$1.86Bn from exports, down US$0.13Bn (6.7%).
• This 4.0% reduction in import spending was largely due to a decline in imports of Raw Materials/Intermediate Goods and Fuels and Lubricants, which declined by 10.6% and 6.9%, respectively. On the export side, the 6.7% decline reflected a 62.9% decrease in the value of re-exports¹, which was partly offset by an 11.0% increase in domestic exports.
• The top five import markets during the period were the United States, China, Brazil, Japan, and Colombia. However, import spending from these countries fell by about 4.0% to $4.45Bn, largely due to lower spending on imports of Mineral Fuels. On the other hand, Jamaica's biggest export markets included the United States, Russia, the Netherlands, Canada, and Iceland. Export revenue from these markets rose by 20.0% to US$1.39Bn, largely due to higher exports of Crude Materials.
• Given the U.S. administration’s announcement of a minimum 10% tariff on all trading partners, this policy shift could lead to a decline in total domestic export revenues for Jamaica, with the U.S. being Jamaica's top trading partner, estimated to account for over 40% of total goods exports. This would create a higher trade deficit balance, reversing the decline witnessed in 2024.

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¹Re-exports apply to any goods that are brought into the country from abroad and then resent to another country.

(Sources: STATIN & NCBCM Research)

• To reduce the risk that the Barbadian government will be forced to bail out the National Insurance and Social Security Service’s (NISS) pension fund, the administration is banking on the effectiveness of three actions: boosting the working-age population, adjusting contribution rates, and strengthening governance of the fund.
• According to the Government of Barbados’s 2025 Fiscal Risk Statement prepared by the Fiscal Risk Unit (FRU) in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment, social and long-term risks including the island’s quickly ageing population, low birth rate, increasing costs to support healthcare, and the current social welfare programmes, are seen as “unsustainable”.
• Addressing the impact of the island’s ageing population and the long-term fiscal implications, the ministry document acknowledged Barbados was “experiencing significant demographic changes”, which posed major fiscal challenges. These included a dwindling workforce and concurrent revenue decline, as well as a smaller working-age population that would support an increasing ageing population.
• To reduce the impact on the NISSS, the government said several steps were being taken to ensure the State does not have to shore up the pensions fund, which the 17th Actuarial Review showed the NISSS liabilities exceeded its assets. However, the administration was confident that introducing policies to increase the working age population, adjusting the NISSS contribution rates, and tightening governance and management of the fund would stave off the necessity to pump money into the social security system to support rising pension demands.
• The report noted that a life expectancy on the island of around 79.92 years in 2025, and a GDP per capita income of $22,673 in 2023, suggested overall health and wellbeing of Barbadians, as well as a “high standard of living”.  However, it warned that the population dynamics remain a challenge to the sustainability of social welfare programs and labour productivity, and that these issues demand strategic planning and ongoing policy adjustments to safeguard government resources and societal stability.

(Source: Barbados Today)

• Mexico's economy performed better than expected in the first quarter of the year, preliminary data released by the national statistics agency INEGI showed on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. Still, analysts continue to warn of a difficult path ahead.
• Latin America's second-largest economy grew 0.2% in the first quarter from the final three months of 2024, INEGI said. That outpaced market expectations in a Reuters poll for zero growth and marked a rebound from a 0.6% fourth-quarter contraction. However, economists continued to sound a cautious note in light of the trade shock generated by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats.
• "The quarter-to-quarter gain helped the Mexican economy avoid a technical recession, but it does little to alter the weak trajectory," Pantheon Macroeconomics chief Latin America economist Andres Abadia said in a note to clients. He mentioned heightened domestic uncertainty, tight financial conditions and ongoing risks from the U.S. trade war, noting that leading indicators already point to a challenging outlook.
• Compared with the same quarter a year earlier, the Mexican economy expanded 0.8% in the January-March period, the statistics agency said, also boosted by primary activities. Economists expected 0.6% year-on-year growth.
• Capital Economics emerging markets economist Kimberley Sperrfechter said the data, which suggests that Mexico headed into the second quarter with weak momentum, should reinforce the central bank's concerns about the health of the economy. "This should pave the way for another 50 basis point rate cut at Banxico's meeting next month," she said, which would represent the third such consecutive reduction, even as annual inflation ticked up in early April.

(Source: Reuters)

• The U.S. trade deficit in goods widened to a record high in March as businesses ramped up efforts to bring in merchandise ahead of President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, suggesting trade was a large drag on economic growth in the first quarter.

• While some of the imported goods ended up in warehouses at wholesalers, economists said this would not blunt the anticipated hit on gross domestic product from the deterioration in the trade deficit.

• The report from the Commerce Department's Census Bureau prompted economists to sharply downgrade their GDP estimates for last quarter to show a steeper decline rather than growth just stalling. Goldman Sachs now sees GDP contracting at a 0.8% annualized rate while JPMorgan forecasts output declining at a 1.75% pace.

• The goods trade gap increased 9.6% to $162.0Bn, the highest on record, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said. Economists estimated trade could have sliced off as much as 1.9 percentage points from GDP last quarter.

• Goods imports soared by $16.3Bn to an all-time high of $342.7Bn. They were driven by a 27.5% jump in imports of consumer goods. There were also solid increases in imports of automotive vehicles and capital goods. But imports of industrial supplies, which had been boosted by non-monetary gold, declined 13.5%. Food imports fell as did those of other goods.

• Economists have cautioned that imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, could greatly exaggerate an anticipated economic slowdown in gross domestic product growth in the January-March quarter.

• Nonetheless, the uncertainty fueled by the often chaotic tariff policy, which has plunged the United States into a damaging trade war with China, is causing tremors throughout the economy. A separate report from the Conference Board showed its consumer confidence index dropped 7.9 points to 86.0 this month, the lowest reading since May 2020.

(Source: Reuters)

• Eurozone consumers raised their inflation expectations for the coming years in March, before the U.S. imposed tariffs on most nations, launching a global trade war that could sap economic growth, a European Central Bank survey showed on Tuesday.

• Inflation over the next 12 months was seen at 2.9%, up from 2.6% in the previous month's survey. The three-years-ahead figure rose to 2.5% from 2.4%, the ECB said based on a survey of 19,000 consumers in 11 euro zone nations.

• While such a rise would normally worry the ECB, the figures predate the U.S. tariffs, which have fundamentally changed the global economic outlook.

• The euro has strengthened, energy prices have fallen and economic growth is likely to be weaker, factors that are all likely to lower price growth. In addition, China, facing reduced access to the U.S. market, could also dump cheap goods on Europe, lowering inflation further.

• The outlook has changed so much that the ECB cut interest rates again in April, warning about weak growth. Some policymakers even see a risk that the ECB will again undershoot its 2% inflation target. The changes are also unlikely to be temporary, and the world is facing a profound shift in how nations interact economically, financially and diplomatically, the ECB has argued.

(Source: Reuters)

• Increased export earnings from hot pepper are among the projected outcomes from the soon-to-be concluded ‘Improving Phytosanitary, Food Safety and Market Access Opportunities along the Hot Pepper Value Chain in Jamaica’ project. The project aims to support increased compliance with sanitary and phytosanitary standards for the production and export of Jamaica’s hot pepper to the European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK), Canada and Regional markets.
• The project, which commenced in May 2022, is scheduled to be completed on July 31, 2025, and is being implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government through the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ), in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining.
• Parishes involved in the project are Clarendon, St. Ann, St. Mary, St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine. The project identified key resource gaps through a sector-wide assessment and is addressing these with targeted support to strengthen pest monitoring and plant health systems.
• Work is under way to improve the technical and resource capacity of local producers, enhance inspection and regulatory bodies involved in sanitary and phytosanitary management and extension delivery to increase the capacity of stakeholders to adopt standards along the hot pepper value chain, increase the production of hot peppers and increase the export potential and market access opportunities for the sector.
• Overall, the project seeks to advance Jamaica’s hot pepper industry through achieving competitive, consistent, high-quality supply of fresh and processed products; meeting food safety and export requirements; sustainably meeting the increase in demand; increasing domestic and international sales; and enhancing the technical and resource capacity of local producers, inspection and regulatory bodies.

(Source: JIS)

• Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, says the Government is open to leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to address challenges in the health sector.
• He emphasises, however, that companies offering these systems must provide a change management plan. Dr. Tufton made the declaration while delivering remarks during the launch of local AI company, Vox Technology Limited, at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Friday (April 25).
• The Minister said one of the most significant challenges with AI and similar technologies is the willingness of existing human capital to embrace them. He explained that while AI could be useful in addressing issues such as a shortage of health personnel, if workers do not willingly embrace the technology, then it may not be worth the investment.
• He urged companies intending to provide the technology to ensure it is accompanied by an effective change-management plan, “because it becomes a waste of money if everything gets placed in the organisation and nobody uses it”.
• Tufton assured that the Ministry is open to AI solutions, particularly to address a shortage of human capital in healthcare.

(Source: JIS)

• Poultry farming in the Dominican Republic continues to play a vital role in both food security and the national economy. With daily production exceeding 750,000 fresh chickens, Gregory Marte, executive director of the Dominican Poultry Association (ADA), emphasised that between 300 and 400 trucks transport chickens daily from production farms to various markets, ensuring a consistent supply.
• Monte Plata, a major production hub, ships 250,000 chickens daily, further solidifying the country’s self-sufficiency in poultry production.
• Alongside chicken, the Dominican Republic’s egg industry has experienced record growth, with annual production reaching 3.95Mn eggs, valued at 21.00Mn pesos. This figure averages nearly one egg per person per day and supports both domestic consumption and exports.
• Of note, the country exports approximately 60Mn eggs monthly to Haiti and Cuba, contributing to foreign currency earnings and regional leadership in egg production.
• Additionally, despite challenges, strategic decisions have led to a 51% increase in genetic stock, boosting production capacity. Local prices for poultry products also remain stable, contrasting with international price hikes, and demonstrating the strength of the national poultry sector.

(Source: Dominican Today)