(BIZ) Israel Stocks Up; Teva, ICL, Telecoms Lead Gainers

9:27 PM by 
"Israeli stocks rose on Sunday, as trading resumed after the two-day New Year market holiday, led by strength in Teva Pharmaceutical and Israel Chemicals and held back by some weakness in the tech sector.

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's benchmark TA-25 Index rose 0.5% to 1176.93 while the TA-100 Index climbed 0.53% to 1091.39.

The Tel-Tech 15 Index of top technology stocks fell 0.3% to 225.78.

The most-active issue was Ratio Oil, trading down 2.6%. Notably higher among energy stocks: Jerusalem Oil Exploration jumped 7%. Both are TA-100 members.



Teva (TEVA 54.15, -0.08, -0.14%) shares 4.4%. Chief Financial Officer Eyal Desheh is scheduled on Tuesday to give a presentation at a Morgan Stanley health-care conference.

Peer blue-chip drugmaker Perrigo (PRGO 58.90, +0.01, +0.02%) rose 0.6%.

Israel Chemicals, the producer of fertilizer and chemicals derived from the Dead Sea, climbed 1.9%. Agrichemicals specialist Makhteshim-Agan (MAIXY 6.81, +0.01, +0.15%) fell 0.9%.

Two of the big telecoms firms advanced - Cellcom (CEL 28.43, +0.12, +0.42%) by 2.7% and Partner (PTNR 17.42, -0.02, -0.11%) by 2.8%. Bezeq dropped 0.7%.

Active and lower in tech were Nice Systems, (NICE 28.70, +0.02, +0.07%) the provider of digital recording and archiving solutions, down 1.6%; and Mellanox, (MLNX 16.37, -0.27, -1.62%) the provider of connectivity solutions for data-center servers and storage systems, off 4%.

Retalix, (RTLX 12.88, +0.28, +2.22%) the developer of management systems for supermarkets and distributors, 2.4%.

In real estate, Ashtrom Properties lost 3% and insurer Harel gave up 1.5%. The Israeli business daily Globes reported on Sunday that a joint venture held 51% by Ashtrom and 49% by Harel agreed to buy a Deutsche Telekom AG office building in Hanover, Germany, for $33.4 million. The venture will lease the property back to the German telecoms firm." (source)