Bethel Finance: TASE Weekly Review: 4 – 8 December 2011

www.bethelfinance.com

Bethel Finance news:

TASE trading in the first week of December ended lower for all leading share price indices.

* The TA-25 index lost 1.3% over the week and is 19.3% lower than its beginning-of-the-year level, following a 16% increase in 2010.
* The TA-100 index, which retreated 1.6% over the week, is 20.5% lower than at the beginning of the year, following a 15% increase in 2010.
* The TA Real Estate-15 index stood out this week with a 3.8% decline while TA BlueTech-50 and TA Banks indices decreased 0.8% and 0.4% respectively.
* The Government of Israel floated government bonds on the local market equaling US $470 million. Since the beginning of the year, the government has raised US $16.6 billion in government bond issues, as opposed to US $15.2 billion in the 2010 calendar year.
* The Bank of Israel released figures indicating that in October foreign investors sold T-bills (MAKAM) for a net sum of US $1.6 billion, continuing the $4.2 May-September sell-off. However, they purchased US $ 3.9 billion Israel government bonds in May-October.
* The NIS/dollar exchange rate on 8 December came to 3.741 a weekly increase of 0.2% against the shekel, which brings the year-to-date appreciation of the dollar to 5.4%, after depreciating 6% in 2010.
* The NIS/Euro exchange rate on 8 December came to 5.0079 a 0.5% decline over the week. The Euro has appreciated 5.7% against the NIS since the beginning of the year, after depreciating 12.9% in 2010.

About TASE

Established in September 1935, the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange is Israel's sole stock exchange, offering an increasingly sophisticated range of products to investors, including equity, corporate bonds, treasury bills and notes, index products and derivatives. The Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange features in October 2011: 605 companies listing equities, 433 index-tracking products, 34 series of government bonds, 690 series of corporate bonds and 1,298 mutual funds. As of October 2011, the exchange's market capitalization in equities was about US$ 174 billion. In recent years, the exchange has enhanced its international presence, signing Memorandums of Understanding with the London Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Toronto Stock Exchange and NYSE-Euronext.