At a time when Israeli financial stocks keep falling and there doesn’t seem to be much interest in the sector, $17 billion hedge fund York Capital is looking to increase its stake in Bank Hapoalim.

According to a report in Globes: ” York Capital wants to expand its activity in Israel and is examining further investments in financial companies.”The sources said that York Capital’s request to the Bank of Israel was with the knowledge and consent of Bank Hapoalim controlling shareholder Shari Arison Dankner. A top banker told “Globes”, “York Capitals’ wish to buy Bank Hapoalim shares especially now is a vote of confidence in the bank and in Israel’s financial system.”

York already owns Psagot investment house which it bought from Bank Leumi. Their move to buy a 9.9% interest in Bank Hapoalim, truly signals York’s commitment to the Israeli marketplace and that they view the country as having

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If there’s ever a reason why you should avoid investing in the electric-car revolution it’s a start-up called Better Place L.L.C.

Based in Silicon Valley, the company is negotiating with governments and car makers to set up networks of charging systems for electric-car batteries.

The New York Times ran a story today about how Hawaiian Electric Company endorsed the Better Place system of rechargeable stations and swappable batteries. Better Place already has garnered endorsements from Israel, Denmark, Australia, Renault-Nissan and a coalition of Northern California.

In essence, the endorsements constitute permission for Better Place to install its system.  Here’s how Better Place makes money for investors:

Drivers pay to access a network of charging spots and conveniently located battery exchange stations powered by renewable energy. – Drivers pay for the miles they drive. – Cars are made much more affordable—even free in some markets—by the business model’s financial and  environmental incentives to add drivers

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Will current Bank of Israel head Stanley Fischer be leaving Israel for the New York Fed? According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Fischer is considered to be a dark horse to fill the vacancy left by Timothy Geithner, who is joining Pres. elect Barack Obama as Treasury Secretary.

According to the Journal, “Outsiders who could be considered include Peter Fisher, a former Treasury official who is now a senior executive at BlackRock Inc.; Stanley Fischer, an economist who runs Israel’s central bank; and Roger Ferguson, a former deputy Fed chairman who is now chief executive of TIAA-CREF, an investment firm that specializes in serving academic institutions.”

The question is whether if this is so, does this mean the Israeli economy is about to go into the gutter. Fischer has a history of bailing out just in the nick of

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Many traders, even those with a strong faith in technical analysis, sometimes like to look around for unusual informations or signals. Most of the times it's only an amusement but occasionally it could carry out something useful. You can find here a few interesting links to Middle East Financial Markets that follow a different business calendar: open from Sunday to Thursday and closed on Friday and Saturday. ISRAEL http://www.tase.co.il/TASEEng/Homepage.htm EGYPT http://www.egyptse.com/index.asp SAUDI ARABIA http://www.tadawul.com.sa ABU DHABI http://www.adx.ae DUBAI http://www.nasdaqdubai.com/home/home.html KUWAIT http://www.kuwaitse.com/PORTAL/DEFAULT.ASPX

As submitted by I’m Right…You’re Wrong

So all the analysts are in great moods as Israel joined the rest of the world in bailing out troubled companies.

According to the JPOST.com: “A further NIS 5b. will be used to set up a number of investment funds in partnership with the pension institutions (provident funds, pension funds and managers’ insurance providers) for the provision of non-bank credit and to deal with the refinancing of bonds. The establishment of the private investment funds will be on the basis of tenders. Out of the NIS 5b., NIS 3b. will be allocated with immediate effect and NIS 2b. in five months time. “The move is designed to support holders of corporate bonds when the bonds mature and to help assure

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Trading halts were triggered in Tel-Aviv as the TASE dropped more than 11.2%. After curbs were lifted the market jumped to close down about 5%. It appears that one institutional investor dumped a ton of stock at the market price triggering the sell-off.

Keep in mind that much like in the US, where bailouts and stimulus have done nothing to stem market drops the same things appears to be happening in Israel as well. I’m Right..You’re Wrong has a great post about the Israeli treasury’s economic recovery plan. Clearly the market hasn’t taken well to the proposal to spend over 21 billion Shekel on government works projects.

The TASE major indexes are off about 50% YTD, and keep in mind that the general public is just waking up to this fact. Many have just started to cash out their pension plans and put them into government bonds. If this trend continues,

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The G20 Summit was first proposed by the UK and France during the first waves of the global economic meltdown. It was long anticipated as a coming together of the major nations in the world to discuss necessary changes to help better regulate international finance, attempt to help stabilize the current turbulent markets, and discuss ways to have additional oversight on the international playing field.

After unprecedented global cooperation of bank bailouts and stimulus packages during the crisis, there was much debate about the outcome of the summit this past weekend. Unfortunately, world markets reflect a relatively negative viewpoint of the outcome– falling multiple percentage points in Europe (-2.4% UK, -3.35% Germany, -3.3% France), the Middle East (approx. -1.0% in Israel, Kenya, and Egypt, and 6% in Saudi Arabia), and mixed returns in Asia (+3/4% in Japan,

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The release of the OSCE report which disputes Georgia's claims about the start of the August invasion by Russia has obviously caused quite a stir, and started a whole new series of arguments from some unwitting pro-war apologists among American liberal camps (case in point), seeking to push the new president-elect Barack Obama far clear of Russia's reclaimed "sphere of influence." Melik Kaylan has a good piece which clarifies some of the problematic thinking going on over the Russia-Georgia issue in light of the new reports, and reminds us not to overestimate either the influence of Mikheil Saakashvili in the Bush White House, nor underestimate the incompetence and disinterest of the Bushies in undertaking such Machiavellian fantasies abroad. There is an additional misconception that underlies much of the programmatic left/right, Democrat/GOP, détente/Cold War binary thinking on the matter: that the Bush administration encouraged Saakashvili to confront the ...

October, one of the worst month on stock markets, is over and Standard & Poor's have published statistics for major stock market indices. I picked group of emerging markets from S&P Global Equity Indices and added four fundamental indicators. Dividend yield, Price / Book Value, Price / Cash flow and Price / Earnings.On average for emerging markets as a group dividend yield is 4.2, P/BV is 1.9, P/CF is 9.5 and FY1 P/E ratio is 9.5.For comparison, in US dividend yield is 3.14, P/BV is 1.76, P/CF is 6.93 and FY1 P/E ratio is 11.8.For both, emerging markets and US markets, this level of fundamental valuation has not been seen in decades. You can also check my last post about stock markets valuation two months ago. Just before global sell-off had been triggered. ...

Since December 1998, EV Rentals Cars (EVTP.OB) has continued to expand to meet the growing green trend. EV Rental is the only rental company in the United States that offers a fleet containing only environmentally-friendly hybrid-electric vehicles. Currently, the company has rental facilities at 8 major airports including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. The company is on a mission to provide the most advanced green vehicles to the public and to raise the public’s awareness of the benefits of driving clean-fuel cars to increase the demand for these environmentally-conscious vehicles. EV Rental is led by an experienced team of professionals who are conscientiously growing the company and its fleet.

The idea to create EV Rental hit Jeffrey Pink in 1997 when he saw an aerial view of Los Angeles. The founder of the company saw the condition of the

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