Billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak took Israel's capital market by storm. Inside a month he bought the controlling interests in count'em - four publicly traded companies, agreeing to hand over a total of NIS 1.3 billion.

The four are Ocif Investment & Development (TASE: OCIF, Gilon Investments (TASE:  GILN), Ameris Holdings (Petro Group), and Tiv Taam, a non-kosher supermarket chain that Gaydamak has already said will stop selling pork. Tiv Taam hasten to qualify that it will stop selling pork if its board says it will.

Be that as it may, TheMarker has decided to track the performance of these companies in a weighted index, the Gaydamak Index, starting today, June 12, 2007.

The index is compiled by factoring in the market cap of the companies he bought, as of their closing market cap on June 11, 2007.

Therefore, Ocif, the biggest company of the lot, comprises 51% of the index. Tiv Taam comprises 24%, Petro Group 18% and Gilon Investments, 7%.

There is an open question as to whether the eggs and egg products company Cham Foods (TASE: CHAM) will join the index, mainly because there's an open question as to whether Gaydamak is about to buy it. Cham says there are talks in that direction, or at least, that one of his representatives was in touch. Gaydamak says there aren't.

Anyway, if he does buy Cham, then it will join the index too.

As of writing the Gaydamak Index is losing 8%.

The aggregate market cap of the four companies he owns is NIS 1.3 billion, as of writing, which means after the recent radical gains in their share prices, which more or less factors in the premiums that Gaydamak agreed to pay.

Since Gaydamak bought Tiv Taam on Friday last week, shares in the chain have risen 21%. Since he bought Gilon, it's gained 52% and since he bought Ocif, that development company's market cap has risen by 76%. Petro Group has gained 24%.