Isreal

• Buffett’s Israel strategy driven by lower dollar- Looking For a Profitable Airline? How About El Al-

  With airlines around the world struggling with high fuel costs, labor disputes and continued client complaints about late arrivals, who would have thought that El Al, the Israeli airline would actually be turning a profit?

  Airline stocks like Continental (CAL), JetBlue (JBLU) have gotten pounded of late. El Al, which unfortunately only trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has held steady over the course of the year.

  El Al reported earnings of of $40.7 million dollars for ‘07, a huge leap from the $33.9 million loss in ‘06. Revenues also jumped 16% in ‘07 to $1.93 billion.

• Top Pick in Mid-East Region: Alon Energy(ALJ)-

  With the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament underway, it’s time to correct an oversight by the selection committee. Why is there no Middle East region? Since they neglected to create a bracket for this region, IOIwill provide one. It’s clear that the number one seed in such a region would be Teva Pharmaceuticals(TEVA). The Israeli company is the largest generic drug company in the world, and the largest and most recognized of Israeli publicly traded companies.

• Retalix suffering from weak dollar (and more)-

  After already providing preliminary results, Retalix (Nasdaq: RTLX) posted losses this morning as the maker of software for food retailers blamed a variety of issues for the swing.

  Forbes reported that “the company said the fourth-quarter was hurt by wages paid in currency other than the U.S. dollar, mainly in Israel, where it is headquartered. The weaker dollar resulted in $1.4 million of additional costs.”

• Currency Intervention Pays for Anniversary Dinner!-

  I would like to start by taking this opportunity to wish my wife, Yael “Nefesh B’Nefesh” Katsman, a belated happy anniversary. Our anniversary was actually yesterday, and NO I didn’t forget, we had a tasty dinner, I just didn’t mention it in the blog. Give me a little credit.

  The big news of the last 24 hours is the intervention in the currency market by the Bank of Israel (BOI). Yesterday afternoon in after-market trading the Shekel/USD rate fell to approximately 3.34. Then came the news that the BOI was intervening for the first time in more than a decade, and that send the greenback back up more than 1.5%. Today, the BOI announced more intervention, and that is helping the dollar even more. Local media reports have said that the BOI wants to get the exchange rate back to at least 3.60, which is about 4% high than today.

• Has Marvell(MRVL) Hit Bottom?- Aaron Katsman www.IsraelNewsletter.com   Shares of Marvell Technology (MRVL) are trading higher as a story in Barron’s says that shares could double in two years as the company’s chips find their way into new products and help boost profits. Barron’s thinks that a potential catalyst for the stock will be as Research in Motion (RIMM) launches 3G BlackBerry handsets using [...]
• Israel Opportunity Investor’s Stock of the Month: Zoran (ZRAN)- Stock of the Month: ZRAN Zoran (Nasdaq: ZRAN), was January’s Stock of the Month as 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 Background Zoran develops and markets integrated circuits (ICs) that provide digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities to a variety [...]
• Should Gilat (GILT) Stay Independent?- Aaron Katsman www.IsraelNewsletter.com   As we have posted about many times in the past, the word on the street is that Gilat Satellite Networks(GILT) is for sale. The big question after yesterday’s strong earnings report is whether they should accept a potential offer? In fact they have rejected past offers. Gilat reported really strong earnings and had good things to [...]
• Company Uncovered: Cimatron (Nasdaq: CIMT)- Cimatron (CIMT) was February’s Stock of the Month as 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 *********************************************************** Hi Dan, can you tell us what Cimatron does? Dan Haran, CEO: Cimatron (Nasdaq: CIMT) is in the CAD-CAM arena for manufacturing. When [...]
• Allot(ALLT)of Cash is Now a Little- By Aaron Katsman IsraelNewsletter.com Allot Communications Ltd. (ALLT)  a provider of intelligent IP service optimization solutions for DSL, wireless and mobile broadband carriers, service providers, and enterprises, reported less than stellar Q4 numbers last week and the stock was punished. A year ago the stock was trading at around $10. Today it’s under $3.  The stock IPO’d [...]
• Alvarion’s blessing and curse- Not wanting to be remiss in giving an update on Israel Opportunity Investor portfolio member, Alvarion (Nasdaq: ALVR), we want to chime in with our two cents. We’ve been positive on the stock and have seen our thesis — that of further global uptake of fixed mobile services — came to fruition and even [...]
• Is a newish ETF a good way to invest in the Jewish state?-

  Someone called us recently to ask about a newish ETF called the SPDR Emerging Middle East & Africa (Amex: GAF). The ETF is heavily weighted around three countries — South Africa (65%), Israel (17%) and Egypt (6%).