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Israel’s stock market continues its move upward in corona recovery

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange made a promising showing on Sunday, adding to its rebound on Friday.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

As expected before Sunday’s opening, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) continued its rebound in Sunday trading. This continues the upward momentum from Friday when the market rose an average of 5 percent.

On Sunday’s trading, BATM Advanced Communications performed well in early trading, rising 13%. Other prominent performers were Melisron, a commercial real estate company (4.75%), and Algomizer (17%), a firm that develops online marketing tools.

Pluristem jumped 12.72%. Pluristem is a biotherapy company specializing in the use of placental stem cells to develop medical treatments. The company announced on Thursday that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared its application for a Phase II study of its treatment of Covid-19 cases complicated by Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).

Teva, which performed admirably on positive reports on Friday, jumping 17.84%, saw a slight decline on Sunday (-3.40%).

The positive growth on the TASE reflects improvement in stock markets worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.9% to close at 24,331.32 on Friday. The S&P 500 was up 1.7% to 2,929.80 while the Nasdaq rose 1.58% 9,121.32. The German DAX rose 1.35% and French benchmark stock index CAC 40, 1.07%.

Investors are betting the worst of the coronavirus is past despite the pandemic sending U.S. unemployment surging 14.7 percent in April. Nonfarm payrolls contracted by 20.5 million last month, the worst on record. It’s 25 times the worst monthly decline during the last recession from 2007 to 2009, Business Insider reports.

Incredibly, the pandemic has wiped out all the U.S job gains in the last 10 years. More than 33 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits.

Israel has also seen an unemployment spike with 1 million, or 26 percent of the workforce, filing for benefits due to the health crisis. With warnings of a possible second wave, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon declared that Israel’s economy could not survive another curfew.

“The economy will not survive another lockdown. If, God forbid, there’s a second wave of infections, we cannot impose a lockdown like we did the first time,” Kahlon said in a panel discussion with health and economic experts Saturday night.