Remember when we heard that stock exchanges were going to be open 24 hours a day 6 or 7 days a week, and that insomniacs would have an outlet instead of watching I Love Lucy reruns? Well it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Believe it or not a labor dispute and union strike are the cause in Israel, where the Tel-Aviv stock exchange plans on cutting down trading hours.

According to a report in Globes: “Shorter trading days in March and April, which resulted from a labor dispute, showed that trading volume did not fall despite the shorter hours. As a result TASE CEO Ester Levanon appointed a committee to examine the issue. Levanon said, “A review by the committee showed that most stock exchange members support a shorter day, and see it resulting in lower costs and employee satisfaction. Exchange members do not expect a drop

The entire interview with Cliff Goldstein of AMIDEX is part of our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor. You can find out more about the product and the opportunities we cover at www.israelnewsletter.com.

Can you tell us how AMIDEX got started?
Cliff Goldstein: I’m a lawyer by trade. In 1998 I saw some really compelling advances being made by Israeli technology companies. I decided to go to brokerage firms to see if I could find a way to invest in this ingenuity. I was specifically looking for a mutual fund that invested in Israeli companies. There wasn’t anything out there. After speaking directly to brokers, it was also clear to me that brokers themselves weren’t really knowledgeable about what was occurring on the ground in Israel. I then went to Israeli

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