Barclays Capital came out predicting a quick end to the shallow Israeli recession, and a return to decent growth of 2.9%  by next year.  Keep in mind that the Israeli economy was late to the ‘recession game’ and looks to be an early ‘exiter’ from economic turmoil as well.

With all this great news Barclays said that they expect an Israeli Shekel/USD exchange rate of 3.65 buy the end of the year. That’s a big move from the 3.93 area that the currency is trading at now.

According to Globes: “Barclays sees a less severe recession in Israel, and relatively quick growth recovery. The investment house bases its optimism on the fact that about 75% of Israeli exports are high-tech goods, and Barclays says that a rise in the Tech-Pulse Index - showing a US high-tech recovery - points to stronger Israeli exports. The Tech-Pulse Index,

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I am giving away my age but when I was a kid, the space race was only between the U.S. and Russia. That's why it boggles my mind to hear that China is planning its first spacewalk later this month.China is going to launch its third manned space mission in late September and will include China's first ever space walk. What this tells me is that it won't be long until China moves up the manufacturing food chain from shirts and shoes to high tech goods.