Weekly Review: 8 - 12 July 2012 Trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) during the second week of July was marked in price declines, in most of the leading indices.

• The TA-25 index decreased 1.5% over the week, bringing year-to-date losses to 1.7%.

• The TA-100 index decreased 1.8% over the week and 0.6% since the beginning of the year.

• The TA BlueTech-50 decreased 6.2%, while the TA Banks was off 0.2%, while the TA Real Estate-15 increased 0.2%. Year-to-date, the TA BlueTech-50 has increased 20% and the TA Banks and TA Real Estate-15 indices decreased 6% and 4% respectively.

• The Israel Electric Corp. raised US $739 million this week, through three series of corporate bond offerings, the largest corporate bond flotation in TASE history to date.  Since the beginning of this year, the business sector has raised US $6.8 million in bonds.

• The government of Israel floated US $450 million bonds on the local market this past week, bringing the year-to-date total of government bond issues to US $11.7 billion, compared to US $18 billion in the entire 2011 year.

• Figures released by the Bank of Israel indicate that in May nonresidents sold shares worth about US $160 million, after purchasing shares valued US $440 net in the first third of 2012.
In addition, during  May, international investors sold government non-linked bonds and treasury bills on TASE equaling US $0.8 and $0.4 billion net respectively, realizing total of  US $4.5 billion since the beginning of 2012       

• The NIS/dollar exchange rate on July 12 came to 3.978 NIS, a weekly increase of 1.2% against the shekel, which brings the year-to-date appreciation of the dollar to 4.1% against the shekel.

• The NIS/Euro exchange rate on July 12 was 4.8532 shekel, a weekly decrease of 0.3% against the shekel. Since the beginning of the year, the Euro has depreciated 1.7% against the shekel.