The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange met the expectations of weekend analyses when it opened the week on Sunday with serious losses.

All of the main indices plummeted in reaction to losses last week in the United States and Europe, and to substantial gains in the East.

Before noon, the TA-25, which lists Israel's top 25 companies, had fallen by 3.7 percent to 1,056 points, the TA-100 lost 4 percent and the Tel-Tech index was down 2.2 percent. The real estate index was down by six percent.

	Advertisement

Economists and senior analysts in Israel and all over the world tried last week to calm worried investors. "Nothing has changed in the economic foundations, which are as they were yesterday and the day before," they told the media again and again.

However, the level of fear on Wall Street rose again at the end of last week because of losses on the mortgage and debt markets and the fear that they would harm private consumption. Stock indices responded with sharp losses, which have erased most of gains from the beginning of the year.