After a delayed start, equities indices on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange continued to plunge this morning. The opening of today's session was delayed when, for the first time since November 20, 2008, the "circuit breaker" was triggered. This is a 30-minute halt in trading imposed if the leading index (currently the Tel Aviv 35 Index) moves by 5%, up or down.
Markets have been sent into a spin by a 30% drop in the price of oil after the break-up of the pact between OPEC and Russia. After a fall of nearly 5% yesterday, the Tel Aviv 35 Index is currently down another 4.18%. The Tel Aviv Oil & Gas Index is down by 17%. Delek Group Ltd. (TASE: DLEKG), which is very exposed to the fluctuations in the price of oil, is down 23.12%, after a 30% slide yesterday. Delek Group's bonds are down a further 20% after a similar fall yesterday, putting their yields at junk levels, a reflection of investors' loss of confidence that Delek Group will be able to service its debt. Also in the energy sector, Ratio is down 19.30%, and Navitas is down 18.49%.
The Real Estate Index is down 6.61%. The leading stocks so far today are Bank Leumi, down 6.38%; Bank Hapoalim, down 6.88%; Nice Systems, down 6.28%; Discount Bank, down 8.00%, and Delek Group.
Opko Health, which shot up 44% yesterday after the company announced that announcement that it would be able to conduct tests for diagnosing coronavirus in laboratories of its portfolio company BioReference Laboratories unit, is up a further 13.17% this morning.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 and DAX indices are both down by more than 5%.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 9, 2020
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