Haaretz: Market Report / Spanish bailout unnerves TASE
Stocks spent most of yesterday well in the red, but retreated somewhat near the end of the day, as Israeli investors worried whether the 100 billion euro bailout of Spain would succeed in containing the European debt crisis. Losses on Wall Street on Monday and yesterday morning’s drops in Asian markets also spooked local investors, but as European stock markets changed direction and rose during the day yesterday, the TASE followed suit in the afternoon. But trading, both locally and elsewhere, was quite volatile.
The benchmark TA-25 index ended the day unchanged at 1,080 points, while the broader TA-100 index fell 0.2% to close at 994 points. Most of the major indexes were in the red, though the TA-Banks index recovered 1.2% yesterday after a steep drop on Monday. Banks shares fell 1.2% during trading before recovering in the afternoon. The Real Estate-15 index fell 0.3% and TA-Insurance index dropped 1.5%. The Biomed index lost 1.7% and the BlueTech-50 index fell 0.9%. The Oil and Gas Exploration index lost 0.5%.
Jun.13, 2012 | 8:01 AM–Turnover was once again low at NIS 944 million. But what stood out yesterday, despite the sparse volume, was volatility. The volatility index, the so-called Tel Aviv VIX, jumped 7.9% for the day after climbing over 12% during trading.
Large-cap corporate bonds, as represented by the TelBond-20, -40 and -60 indexes, lost 0.1% to 0.3%. The TelBond-Shekel index lost 0.2%. Government bonds were up slightly.
Among the corporate bonds that took a big hit yesterday were those of Ilan Ben-Dov’s Scailex. Scailex Series 9 bonds plunged 11.5% to junk yields of 41%, as investors are facing Ben-Dov’s sale – and possible haircut – of Scailex, which is the controlling owner of the Partner cellular company. Scailex shares dropped 6.9%. Isralom bonds lost 5% and reached junk yields of 31%-39%.
Kardan NV plummetted 7.8%, continuing recent losses. Eliezer Fishman’s Jerusalem Economic Corp. lost 3.6% and B Communications lost 2.1%. Discount Investment, Israel’s largest holding company, rose 2.9% for the day after dropping 7.8% during trading…Read More>>
