Teva plunges 6.5% on NIS 640m turnover

Stocks were mixed yesterday in Tel Aviv, with the main indexes almost unchanged. But the big news without a doubt was Teva Pharmaceuticals, whose shares plunged 6.5% on huge volume, NIS 640 million - a third of the total turnover on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The drop in Tel Aviv followed a 8.6% fall in Teva shares on Wall Street on Friday, as investors continued to worry about generic competitors to Teva's Copaxone multiple sclerosis drug. (See stories on Page 8. )

	Teva center in Jerusalem, March 23, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

The fact that Teva fell less on the TASE than on Wall Street shows there are still plenty of Israeli institutional investors who saw the drop as an opportunity to buy Teva at a good price.

Stocks were up strongly until about 2:30 P.M., when they reversed direction, possibly because investors sold off other shares to buy Teva heavily, after the pharmaceutical giant fell 8% at the opening. The TASE's early gains may have also been reflective of Wall Street's strong showing on Friday.

The benchmark TA-25 was up 0.05% for the day to close at 1,119 points. Teva makes up a weighted 9.5% of the TA-25, so the company's drop pulled the blue chip index down over 0.6%. The broader TA-100 was almost unchanged, ending the day at 1,033 points. The Banks-5 rose 1.5% and the Real Estate-15 was up 0.6%. Turnover stood at NIS 1.86 billion, around average but high for a Sunday, and high compared to the last few weeks.

While there is no official forex trading on Sundays, options trading showed the dollar almost unchanged yesterday against the shekel and also reflected a small drop in the euro-shekel rate.

Banks prop up TASE

Bank Hapoalim gained 1.6% yesterday and Bank Leumi rose 1.5%. Israel Chemicals was down 1.6% and Bezeq lost 0.9%. Supermarket chain Super-Sol lost 0.3%, while Delek Automotive was up 0.7%.

Kardan NV rose 2% as it sold off most of its pension holdings in Central and Eastern Europe.

Bank Hapoalim analysts continued to recommend focusing more on specific stocks and less on indexes, which they wrote in their weekly survey at the end of last week. Hapoalim economists prefer defensive investments such as Teva and Israel Chemicals, as well as firms weighted toward the local market such as Bezeq, Super-Sol and Delek Automotive.

Shares that stood out in yesterday's trading included NICE Systems, up 4.2%; Israel Land Development Corporation, up 4.3%; Delek Real Estate, up 6.9%; Ness Technologies, up 5.3%; and Ampal American, up 6.6%.