A bad day for world markets brought the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange down yesterday, but only slightly. In any case, the TASE was up for the week, despite yesterday's pessimism.
The TA-25 lost 0.2% to close at 1,065 points, and the TA-100 fell 0.4% to end the trading day at 989 points. The TelTech-15 lost 1.5%. For the week, the TA-25 rose a nice 2.5% and the TA-100 was up 1.8%. Turnover yesterday was NIS 2 billion.
Fears of a deepening recession in the U.S., along with problematic financial reports at the start of reporting season there, and rising oil prices took their toll on world markets yesterday and the day before. However, the losses moderated in the late afternoon as Wall Street opened on a positive note.
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The International Monetary Fund issued a forecast yesterday of 3% economic growth rate for Israel in 2008 and 3.4% for 2009. This is a higher rate than for Germany, France or the U.S. - as a result of the world-wide economic slowdown and the credit crisis.
Despite the overall depressed atmosphere and the U.S. recession, as well as the slowdown in the Israeli economy, the TA-25 blue-chip index has managed to rise 11% in the last three weeks, and remain solidly above the 1,000 point barrier.
"Despite the volatility and serious anxiety, the market has managed to stabilize at its present level of over 1,000 points," said Roy Laufer of the Excellence Nessuah investment house. "There are still large flows of investments both in and out and [investors] are still highly selective. For the present quarter, at the very latest in the next quarter, the market will succeed in returning to gains," explained Laufer.
Two big companies once agains stood out in bucking the market trend: The Israel Corporation and its subsidiary Israel Chemicals both rose yesterday. Israel Chemicals was up 0.5% to a new record high, and drew a huge amount of investor interest with the day's highest turnover of NIS 320 million.
The share has now jumped 20% since the start of the month in response to high potash and other commodity prices, as well as the signing a large contract with an Indian firm this week. The Israel Corporation rose 2.3% for the day with the TASE's second-highest trading volume. The share has seen a 30% increase in a month.
The Real Estate-15 lost 1.7% yesterday and led the market down. The index has now seen all its gains for the last week wiped out. Africa Israel fell 2.1% on profit taking, after skyrocketing 25% in the week and a half after the appointment of a new CEO. In addition, investors may simply have felt that the share was undervalued.
Africa announced yesterday that it would provide its Danya Cebus construction subsidiary with up to NIS 200 million in fresh funding to improve its equity situation, after taking a huge hit on its Road 431 construction project. However, even this announcement did not help Danya Cebus' share value, which fell another 3.7% yesterday.
Bank shares continued downward once again yesterday with Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi both losing 0.5%.
VeriFone reached another new low, dropping a further 3.7% yesterday.
Among small-cap stocks, Exalenz Bioscience stood out for the second day in a row, and jumped 7.5%. That puts it 20% up in two days. The big gains are the result of the approval it received to market its diagnostic devices for liver disease in Europe in another two months.
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