Bethel Finances: Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange Weekly Review: April 3-7, 2011

www.bethelfinance.com

Bethel Finance news:

Share trading in the first week of April 2011 was marked by highly volatile and declines in all leading indices.

• The TA-25 index, which decreased 0.3% over the week, closing 0.7% lower than at the beginning of the year, following a 16% increase in 2010.
• The TA-100 index decreased 0.4% this week, but is 1.8% lower than at the beginning of the year, after gaining 15% in 2010. On Sunday, April 3, 2011, TASE launched five new share price indices:
• The TA-Technology index is a composite index of the shares of all electronics, IT, cleantech and venture capital companies.
• The TA Blue Tech- 50 index replaces the Tel Tech Index and includes the 50 most highly capitalized constituent companies of the TA-Technology and Biomed indices.Three new industry indices – the TA Oil&Gas index, the TA Com index and the TA-Insurance index includes the large companies in each of the these industries.The Tel Aviv Finance and TA Estate- 15 indices declined 2.4% and 2.1% respectively, this week.
• The TA Blue Tech- 50 index lost 1.8% over the week.The Israeli government floated bonds on TASE equaling US $430 million, bringing the year-to-date total of new local government bond issues to US $4.7 billion.
• The dollar/NIS exchange rate on April 7th came to 3.451, marking a 0.6% weekly decline. The NIS has appreciated 2.8% against the dollar since the beginning of the year, after appreciating 6% in 2010.
• The Euro/NIS exchange rate on April 7th came to 4.9254, gaining 0.1% this week against the NIS. The Euro has appreciated 4% 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 613 companies listing equities, 415 index-tracking products, 33 series of government bonds, 679 series of corporate bonds and 1,294 mutual funds. As of March 2011, the exchange’s market capitalization in equities was about US$ 226 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.