Market Report / Olmert has no effect on the TASE

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's announcement Wednesday night that he will quit after the Kadima primaries had little, if no, effect on stocks or the shekel yesterday.

The market moved little for most of the day, though it eased when Wall Street opened lower on poorer-than-expected U.S. GDP figures. But the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange recovered at the end of trading.

The TA-25 index of blue chips inched up 0.1% to close at 1,035 points, and the TA-100 rose 0.3% to end at 948 points.

For the week the TA-25 was little changed and the TA-100 was up 1%. The TelTech-15 lost 1% yesterday, but the technology index up 2.4% for the week. Turnover was NIS 2.1 billion.

The dollar rose by a smidgen against the shekel yesterday, 0.029%, and the representative rate was set at NIS 3.47. But despite its recent gains since the Bank of Israel announced it was purchasing $100 million in foreign currency a day, the dollar is still down against the shekel by 10% so far this year.

Teva received approval yesterday from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell an extended-release generic version of Depakote for bipolar disorder, epilepsy and migraines. The brand-name drug has annual sales of $1.5 billion. Teva shares climbed 1.4%.

Israel Chemicals recovered nicely, up 5.3%, as a potash producer, the European K+S Group, raised its forecasts for the third time this year. The Israel Corporation, Chemicals' parent firm, jumped 4%.

The Real Estate-15 index was down 0.6% yesterday and 2.8% for the week.

Gazit Globe fell 3.5% after the firm bought an 11-dunam plot on Moshe Dayan Street in Rishon Letzion for building a 20,000-square-meter mall. Delek Real Estate lost 2%.

Nice rose 1.1% after signing its largest-ever defense deal. It will supply $15 million in systems to an unnamed law-enforcement agency.

Walla! rose almost 1% after announcing it will buy a social-networking site from Bee Contact, which climbed 2.7%.

Partner Communications lost 2% despite publishing good second-quarter figures. It had revenues of NIS 1.5 billion for the quarter and 5.2% growth from a year earlier. Operating profits rose 2.9% to NIS 378 million, and net profits were up 8.4% to NIS 247 million.