Last update - 00:00 16/08/2007
TASE closes day's trading with sharp losses across the board
By Natan Sheva, Hadar Tadmor and Haaretz Service
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange closed trading Thursday with sharp losses, with the TA-25 plummeting 3.1 percent to 1038 points, nearly 10 percent down from its peak.
TA-100 fell by 3.5 percent to 1007 points, nearly 12 percent down from its peak three months ago.
The estate index has suffered the most significant loss of 4.9 percent, and Tel-Tech is also down by 4.5 percent.
European markets have also experienced sharp losses, with the London Stock Exchange falling 2.2 percent, and Paris and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges each dropping by 2 percent.
These losses are a symptom of the worsening sub-prime mortgage crisis, which has been sweeping the U.S. for more than three weeks.
The New York Stock Exchange experienced sharp losses on Wednesday, which were followed by 3 to 4 percent losses in Asia: Tokyo is down by 1.9 percent, Hong Kong by 3.7 percent, Shanghai by 2.5 percent, and Seoul by 7 percent.
The Asian-Pacific index MSCI is down by 3.6 percent, which concludes an overall drop of 15 percent in the last month.
TASE is also affected by the predicted rise in interest rates, which will take effect in order to pre-empt excessive inflation.