TASE- The Week in Review: December 20-24, 2009

TEL-AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gains in all leading indices marked trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) during the fourth week of December.

The TA-25 increased 3.5%, bringing the cumulative year-to-date increase to 75%. The TA-75 was up 6% and continued to stand out with cumulative year-to-date gains of 153%.

Shares of the Tel-Tech-15 index of key high-tech companies and the large real estate outperformed the market this week, gaining 6.5%-7.5%. Shares of Israel’s major financial institutions increased 4%.

This week TASE announced adjustments to the composition of its leading equity indices, which become effective 3/1/2010. Gazit Globe, Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration (both of the latter involved in the offshore gas discovery) graduated to the TA-25. Koor, Migdal Insurance and Africa-Israel Investments were dropped from the index.

The Israeli treasury raised an additional US $300 million this week in a local government bond issue, bringing the year-to-total to $17.3 billion, 18% more than the amount raised in 2008.

The Bank of Israel released its Composite State-of-the Economy index for November, which continued to rise at a rate of 0.6%. Since the beginning of the year, the Composite index increased 3.2%.

About TASE:

Established in September 1935, the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange is Israel’s sole stock exchange, offering an increasingly sophisticated range of products to investors, including equity, corporate bonds, treasury bills and notes, index products and derivatives. The Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange features 627 companies listing equities, 355 index-tracking products, 36 series of government bonds, 586 series of corporate bonds and 1165 mutual funds. As of November 2009, the exchange’s market capitalization in equities was over US$217 billion. In recent years, the exchange has enhanced its international presence, signing Memorandums of Understanding with the London Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and NYSE-Euronext.

Visit the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's Website www.tase.co.il.