nun bet

Well, I am finally back to bring you the news about my two stock simulations that I’ve been tracking for the Invest in Israel series. For those of you new to the series, check out this first post where it all started. Basically, Invest in Israel is a series of blog posts where I am tracking the performance of two stock simulations. One game (Invest in Israel) is tracking an $1000 investment divided about equally among eight stocks. In the other game (First Israel Fund Game), I have invested almost $1000 in the First Israel Fund which is a “non-diversified, closed-end management investment company that seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in Israeli securities.”

Invest in Israel Game: It’s been a high flying time for some of the stocks in the Invest in Israel game. Aladdin Knowledge Systems is up 18.69% since the start of the game. Fundtech Ltd is up 17.985% and Check Point Software Technologies is up 13.53%. However, the biggest loser this week is Given Imaging (with their cool pill cam) which is posting a decline of 11.45%. That loss brings the average increase for this group of stocks compared with their initial purchase investment to just 5.39% for this week.

First Israel Fund Game: This fund is holding steady on the plus side with a gain of 5.94% since the initial purchase.

In other investment news, according to Ynet, the Back of Israel has reported that foreign investment in Israel reached USD 21.1 billion in 2006. This is up from USD 9.9 billion in 2005 and USD 7.2 billion in 2004. Net foreign investment in Tel Aviv Stock Exchange-listed securities totaled USD 219 million in December 2006 alone. Read more for yourself.