TASE extends trading hours

The market will close at 5:25 pm Monday-Thursday, and at 4:25 pm on Sunday.

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has finalized the changes in its trading times: on Sunday, trading will end at 4:25 pm, not at 2:30 pm, as originally planned; Monday-Thursday, trading will end at 5:25 pm, an hour later than at present. Opening hours will remain unchanged. The change in trading hours will come into effect on June 16.

As "Globes" reported yesterday, Israel Securities Authority chairman Shmuel Hauser opposed shortening the trading day on Sunday to 2:30 pm, and he supported extending the trading day on weekdays until 5:25 pm.

The TASE board of directors approved extending the trading day three months ago. TASE CEO Esther Levanon, who initiated the proposal, presented it as an attempt to deal with the steady drop in trading volume, and to attract foreign investors to the market.

At the time, investment houses were angry at the proposal. One investment house said that it would increase operating costs, without solving the problem of liquidity.

The banks, which are expected to be the main beneficiaries of the widening of the overlap in trading hours between Israel and the US, supported the measure. They helped secure its approval by the TASE board of directors, partly because of the shorter trading hours on Sunday, which was supposed to partly offset the extra costs. However, the shorter Sunday hours have been cancelled.

In 2005, Hauser, when he was chairman of the Hauser committee, recommended extending the TASE's trading hours to 5:30 pm to create an overlap with the opening of trading on Wall Street. The TASE hours were extended, but, four years later, Levanon decided to return to its previous opening hours, after the TASE concluded that the overlap in trading hours did not bring any advantage.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 23, 2013

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013

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