Market report / Stocks retreat, but less than in Europe

Tel Aviv shares lost their upward momentum yesterday and ended sharply lower after a grim day for equities worldwide. Russian stocks tumbled about 9% and European markets retreated by anywhere from 2% to 7%.

Gold spiked to $970 per ounce on fears that the global banking sector will report more gigantic losses for the fourth quarter of 2008. U.S. treasury bonds, considered a relatively safe haven like gold, were among the few securities posting gains. Oil plunged, losing 7% per barrel to $34.81 on assessments that the global recession will dampen demand for fuel.

Here at home the losses - though substantial - were lesser. The benchmark TA-25 index dropped 1.9% to 679 points and the TA-100 index fell 1.4% to 620 points. The Tel Tech-15 index gained 0.3% despite being heavily weighted with shares dual-listed on Nasdaq.

Total turnover remained slim at NIS 1.1 billion, indicating a paucity of activity by foreign investors and heavy institutional investors.

Eyes were turned on Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which yesterday published its results for the fourth quarter before the session had started. Teva gained 2.1% after reporting an 11% increase in sales to $2.85 billion. Non-GAAP profit - not including one-time items like its billion-dollar charge on buying Barr Pharmaceuticals - was $634 million or 76 cents per share, which beat analyst expectations by 3 cents.

Shares of Ormat Industries, which builds and runs geothermal and other renewable energy-type power plants, lost 3%. Bronicki Investments, owned by the Bronicki family that owns the controlling interest in Ormat, gave Bank Hapoalim attachments to all their shares to secure a $150 million loan they'd taken from the bank to buy more shares in Ormat in 2007. This was to ward off a hostile takeover in the making.

In the chemicals sector, Israel Chemicals eased 0.9% after IBI analyst Yuval Zehira said he doesn't see the world fertilizer sector rebounding this year, or next for that matter. Farmers don't absolutely have to fertilize their fields every year, he explained. He also predicted that ICL will net only $1.06 billion in 2009, poor dear, half its record profit of $2.2 billion in 2008.

Still in chemicals, Makhteshim Agan lost 5%. The only news was that the company is thinking of moving some operations to India because of the good value for money one gets on human capital there.

Retalix surged 17.3% on news of a $160 million takeover bid, well above its market capitalization at the time.

Housing & Construction, which said it's considering building a solar power plant in the Negev, lost 2.8%.

Isramco, a main partner in the Tamar-1 exploration that found the huge field of gas off the Haifa shore, exploded upwards again, closing 24% higher on huge turnover of NIS 90 million.

Yitzhak Tshuva's Delek Group is negotiating to sell the Republic insurance company. Shares of Delek, which has holdings in energy and real estate, lost 0.6% on turnover that remained relatively heavy at NIS 23 million. Delek is also a major partner in the Tamar-1 site.