Stocks rose at yesterday's end of the trading week on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, but the turbulent days in Europe after the Greek and French elections sent the TASE - and world markets - down for the week overall, with leading indexes on Ahad Ha'am falling about 3%.
The blue chip TA-25 index rose 0.4% for the day to close at 1,135 points and the broader TA-100 index gained 0.5% to end the day at 1,039 points.
Most major indexes were up yesterday, though the Biomed index dropped 0.8% and the Real Estate-15 fell 0.3%. The Oil and Gas Exploration index rose 1.5% and the BlueTech-50 index gained 1.8%.
Bank shares recovered strongly yesterday, with the TA-Banks index gaining 1.8% after falling sharply when rating agency Moody's lowered its outlook for the Israeli banking sector to "negative" on Tuesday. But for the week, bank shares dropped 4%, even after yesterday's rebound.
Turnover was below recent averages at just over NIS 1 billion.
Large-cap corporate bonds rose 0.2% yesterday, but fell 0.9% for the week. Still, government bonds rose 0.4% for the week as investors looked for safer havens in response to the worsening debt crisis in Europe. In addition, the political developments - the broad national unity coalition - encouraged Israeli investors as Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said the 2013 state budget framework will not be breached.
For the week, the benchmark TA-25 fell 2.8% and the TA-100 lost 2.7%. But Israeli shares mainly mimicked world markets.
Dollar rises above NIS 3.82
Two shares that stood out yesterday and helped pull the TA-25 into the green were Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which released its financial results on Wednesday and the share gained 2.1% in response (See story on Page A8 ); and Bezeq, which rose 1.8%.
The dollar rose 0.2% against the shekel yesterday to a representative rate of NIS 3.82, its highest level since January. The euro moved slightly inthe opposite direction to a representative rate of NIS 4.94.
These moves in the foreign exchange market reflected the dollar's continued rise against the euro in global forex markets as investors become more and more pessimistic about European markets and austerity programs.
