The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) fell today. The Tel Aviv 25 Index fell 1.49% to 1,302.37 points, the Tel Aviv 100 Index fell 1.70% to 1,199.12 points, and the BlueTech 50 Index fell 2.95% to 347.80 points. Turnover was NIS 739.2 million.
Today's declines in Tel Aviv follow steep falls in the US and Europe on Friday. The trigger for those falls was the publication of the Chinese Purchasing Managers Index, which fell to 49.5 points in January from 50.5 points in December. The fall in the index indicates that China's economy is contracting, partly because of a drop in orders from domestic manufacturers for the first time in six months.
Leader Capital Markets said today, "The markets were ready for a correction; China supplied the reason."
In the foreign currency market, options pointed to a 0.20% gain in the shekel-dollar exchange rate, compared with Friday's representative rate, to NIS 3.49/$, and to a 0.28% gain in the shekel-euro exchange rate to 4.779/€.
In the bond market, long-term Shahar unlinked shekel government bonds and long-term Galil CPI-linked government bonds fell. The corporate bond benchmark Tel-Bond 20 Index fell 0.02%.
In the stock market, all the shares on the Tel Aviv 25 Index fell today, led by a 4.1% drop by Opko Health Inc. (NYSE: OPK; TASE: OPK). Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) fell 2.5%, after announcing that it would continue clinical trials of its oral treatment for multiple sclerosis, despite a negative opinion by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Israel Corporation (TASE: ILCO) fell 2.9%, and subsidiary Israel Chemicals Ltd. (TASE: ICL) fell 2.4% on the day's biggest turnover of NIS 29.3 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 26, 2014
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