The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) fell today. The Tel Aviv 25 Index fell 1.13% to 886.84 points; the Tel Aviv 100 Index fell 1.10% to 803.81 points, while the Tel Tech Index was virtually unchanged at 201.08 points. Turnover totaled NIS 1.385 billion.
5768, the Jewish year now ending was not an exceptionally successful one for the TASE. Investors in real estate and technology stocks saw the value of their investments halved, with investors in conservative instruments, especially long-term index-linked bonds, the only ones to see some joy from their holdings. Paradoxically, the safest bonds were the ones that yielded the highest return. Yields on the various investment instruments were quite varied. Investors in Tel Aviv 25-listed equities benefited from substantial exposure to Israel Chemicals Ltd. (TASE: ICL), which slowed the declines dramatically, bringing the fall in the Tel 25 Index over 5768 to 15.4%, against 21.6% for the Tel Aviv 100 Index.
The Tel Aviv Real Estate 15 Index lost 55.3% over 5768, followed by the Tel Tech Index which tumbled 51.6%. Stocks in both sectors were affected by negative sentiment. The 16.6% fall over the year in the shekel-dollar exchange rate meant that the cost of an Israeli engineer has become the same as that of his American counterpart, and dollar-denominated revenues shrank accordingly. The big winners in the past year were long long-term index-linked instruments, or Galil bonds for short. The yield on Galil 5.7-year average duration notes rose by 11.05% over the year.
In market news, Delek Real Estate Ltd. (TASE: DLKR) announced on Thursday that it would be able to repay the loan it took to acquire UK petrol station and convenience store chain RoadChef, but the company has other liabilities and many people felt the prices it agreed in its deals were a sign of pressure and showed it to be ill prepared for the crisis. Delek Real Estate fell 6.2% today on brisk volume.
Delek Real Estate's parent, Delek Group Ltd. (TASE: DLEKG) also finished the day lower, falling 2.3% despite an exceptionally strong recommendation from Clal Finance Batucha.
IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH) subsidiary Koor Industries (TASE: KOR) closed down 0.2% after announcing at the end of the last week that it had completed the sell-off of its holding in Credit Suisse and would record a capital gain of NIS 533 million in the third quarter, which ends today.
The TASE will be closed for three days for the New Year holiday, and will reopen on Thursday, October 2.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 28, 2008
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