The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) rose today. The Tel Aviv 25 Index rose 2.45% to 1,214.59 points, the Tel Aviv 100 Index rose 2.60% to 1,076.34 points, and the BlueTech 50 Index rose 2.71% to 320.35 points. Turnover was NIS 971.5 million.
The TASE rose strongly across the board today following the US fiscal cliff agreement, while European markets and Wall Street were closed for New Year's.
In the foreign currency market, options point to a 0.04% gain in the shekel-dollar exchange rate, compared with yesterday's representative rate, to NIS 3.734/$ and a 0.21% gain in the shekel-euro exchange rate to NIS 4.931/€, up 0.05%.
In the bond market, long-term Shahar unlinked shekel government bonds fell by up to 0.1% and long term Galil CPI-linked government bonds fell by up to 0.2%. The corporate bond benchmark Tel-Bond 20 Index rose 0.31%.
In the stock market, Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:MLNX; TASE:MLNX) was the only Tel Aviv 25 share to lose ground today, falling 0.4%. It has fallen 20% in the past month.
Banks led the market upwards, boosted by gains among financial stocks on Wall Street yesterday, with Israel Discount Bank (TASE: DSCT) up 4.1% for the biggest gain among Tel Aviv shares. Mizrahi Tefahot Bank (TASE:MZTF) rose 2.2% Bank Hapoalim (TASE: POLI) rose 3.3% on the day's biggest turnover of NIS 66 million.
Small-cap Biocancell Therapeutics Ltd. (TASE:BICL) rose another 55% today on top of yesterday's 76% jump, and D-Pharm Ltd. (TASE: DPRM) rose 26%, after their parent company, Clal Biotechnology Industries Ltd. (TASE: CBI), yesterday announced plans to merge with the two subsidiaries and delist them. Clal Biotech rose 3.3%.
IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH) rose 8.5% and subsidiary Discount Investment Corporation (TASE: DISI) rose 10.2%, after IDB's option to sell its remaining 10.5% stake in Clal Industries and Investments Ltd. (TASE: CII) to Access Industries Inc. for NIS 251 million expired today.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 1, 2013
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