First Israel Fund Jumps 10% - Discount To NAV Closing

First Israel Fund (ISL) opened up over 4% and eventually rose to a 10% gain Monday on extremely high volume for that closed-ended fund. ISL now stands at a new all-time high.

I first started buying ISL just over 4 years ago, not only for its discount to NAV but because of the exposure that it gave me to the tech and bio-tech rich Israeli market and well as to companies which are not readily and publicly available to a US based investor. The stock traded at a 8% discount to NAV on Friday.

I have not seen or heard any news for ISL to explain the sudden price movement. The surge in ISL might indicate that some action may be taken by the ISL fund sponsors to close the discount through some rights offering or conversion. Even if that were to occur I would still hold onto my ISL as it still provides with that Israeli capital markets exposure.

Disclosure: At the time of this entry Scott Rothbort, his family and or clients of LakeView Asset Management, LLC were long shares of ISL.

ISL 1-yr chart:

Comments

[David Jackson:]

I seem to remember that ISL has some unusual holdings and sector concentration, and the expense ratio isn't cheap. It's odd that there's no Israel index ETF available.

2007 May 01 05:02 AM

[User 320616:]

Look up EIS


On May 01 05:02 AM David Jackson wrote:

> I seem to remember that ISL has some unusual holdings and sector
> concentration, and the expense ratio isn't cheap. It's odd that there's
> no Israel index ETF available.

2008 Dec 16 11:33 AM

[Scott Rothbort:]

David,

There is an Israel ETF. IT was released earlier this year. It is the iShares MSCI Israel Cap Invest Mkt Index (EIS)


On May 01 05:02 AM David Jackson wrote:

> I seem to remember that ISL has some unusual holdings and sector
> concentration, and the expense ratio isn't cheap. It's odd that there's
> no Israel index ETF available.

2008 Dec 16 07:28 PM