Here is a round-up of some of the news impacting the JSE small and mid-cap markets on Monday the 14th of May:

Liquidity just isn’t there

JSE-listed small and mid-cap shares continue to suffer from a lack of liquidity but this might throw up some opportunities for sharp eyed traders. To highlight this lack of liquidity one has only to look at the major movers down on the JSE yesterday with GAIA (-15% on less than R30 000), Stadio selling off 6% at the close, Verimark down 11% on less than R10 000, Master Plastics down 6% on R7000 and CSG down 4.8% on R40 000 volumes.

Montauk director taking some profits

The listed operator of renewable energy projects barely registers on most investor radars but has delivered an impressive 2075% over the past 5 years and a handy 47% in the last 30 days. The group CEO – Martin Ryan – has recently R4.2m shares at R84/share.

Calgro again delivers the goods

Property developer Calgro has again delivered solid results in a tough market (see the recent Balwin results). Key to the commentary is the ability to access development funding – including from international markets for future development.

Tradehold shows its Mettle

Shareholders in Tradehold will see their investment change over the next few weeks as the company will split out its shares in financial services group Mettle. Tradehold shareholders will receive 1 Mettle share for every Tradehold share currently held. Mettle Investments is a boutique financial advisory firm aiming to make available early-stage funding and investments in businesses in either SA or the UK markets.

Netcare boosts its dividend

Hospital group Netcare has upped its interim dividend by 15.8% to 44c/share. This was announced as part of its release of interim financial results to the end of March 2018. In commentary accompanying the results, the company suggests that the local healthcare market has “returned to growth” although there are limited plans to add new beds / hospitals in the current environment. The SA healthcare market inquiry results are anticipated to be released on 30 May 2018 and are likely to give some views on issues such as pricing and competition in the SA context – this could influence future growth plans.