The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) rose today. The Tel Aviv 25 index closed up 1.84% at 522.36 points, the Tel Aviv 100 index rose 2.03% to 551.40 points, and the Tel-Tech 15 index rose 3.29% to 384.42 points. Turnover totaled NIS 448 million.
Something happened today that we haven’t seen on the TASE for a good many months. All the Tel Aviv 25 index shares were up for most of the trading day. As far as I remember, the last time that happened was in March. The Tel Aviv 25 made it over 520 points, the Tel Aviv 100 index climbed over 550 points, and the Tel-Tech index has now surged 11% in one week.
Teva still on comeback trail
As usually, Teva was the TASE trading leader with a NIS 42 million turnover less than we’ve gotten used over the past month, when the share averaged almost NIS 100 million a day. Teva began the day with a negative 0.1% arbitrage gap, which it ignored by gaining 0.7%.
Incidentally, Teva announced at the end of last week that those with holdings in its 2001 convertible bonds, amounting to $349 million, had accepted its offer to convert their bonds into shares. The conversion rate for the bonds was 0.75%, and the conversion will increase the number of outstanding Teva shares by 16.3 million.
Israel Chemicals calls off issue
Israel Chemicals confirmed the predictions published last week in “Globes” that the company would put off its Wall Street issue until next year. TASE investors liked the announcement, which released some of the negative pressure on the share, leaving it free to rise a further 1.8%.
Israel Corporation makes hay
Improved results in all its subsidiaries except for Tower Semiconductor contributed to an excellent quarterly report by the Israel Corporation. The improvement in the company’s results boosted the share 2.7% on the day, putting it in second place on the Tel Aviv 25 index with a 39.5% return this year, after Africa-Israel Investments with a 46% return.
Technology shares do well
Dual-listed technology shares stood out today with quite sharp rises, following the positive trend prevailing at the end of last week on Nasdaq, which led to positive arbitrage gaps in most dual-listed shares.
Retalix opened the day with an exceptional positive 5% arbitrage gap, and converted the opportunity into a 5.2% jump on the TASE. Lipman Electronics Engineering, which started the day with a positive arbitrage gap, improved that into a 4.3% rise. With a positive 4.6% arbitrage gap, Given Imaging racked up a 2.9% gain. Alvarion begin with a positive 6% arbitrage gap, and parleyed into a 4.8% surge, and AudioCodes rode a 7.1% arbitrage gap to a 6.4% gain.
The banks shares continued their positive trend of recent days. Bank Hapoalim was up 0.7%, Bank Leumi 0.4%, and Israel Discount Bank 1.4%.
The Bezeq share outperformed the market today with a 2.7% rise. The company published its second-quarter results at the end of last week, featuring improvement in its subsidiaries, together with lower revenue from land-based communications services by the parent company.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on August 22, 2004