TASE gaining 1% Sunday mid-day despite last night's terror attacks

Tel Aviv stocks are up 1% at Sunday mid-day after 0.5% opening gains. The gains come against a backdrop of the escalation in the regional fighting and are attributed to strong gains of 2.5% posted on Nasdaq on Friday. In addition, investors are hoping that the parties will renew talks for a cease-fire, given the upcoming visits to the region of Vice President Dick Cheney and retired General Anthony Zinni.

Thirteen people died and over 100 people were injured Saturday night in terrorist attacks in the northern coastal town of Netanya and in Jerusalem.

The Maof-25 blue chip index is up 1.0% to 416.0 points, and the TA-100 index is up 0.8%, crossing the 400-point mark, to 401.5 points. Technology shares are rising 1.6%. Total turnover is low at NIS 103 million.

Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi are trading unchanged after mild opening gains. Mizrahi Bank is up 0.8%. Today international rating firm Moody's downgraded the five major banks from stable to negative because of the security situation and related economic conditions.

Drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:TEVA) is down 2.7% on the session's biggest turnover, NIS 21.3 million. Teva opened with 3.2% negative arbitrage spread. The drops are attributed to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of Serono's Rebif, a multiple sclerosis treatment that competes with Copaxone.

Nessuah Zannex analyst Haim Israel told TheMarker that Serono's FDA approval will affect Teva, but the effect is expected to be relatively small. He estimated that the penetration rate of Teva's MS drug Copaxone in the United States is now expected to be slower.

Tower Semiconductor (Nasdaq:TSEM) is up 3.2%. The company announced it has successfully manufactured the first silicon wafers using 0.18 micron technology in a pilot product line of its Fab 2 in Migdal Ha'emek.

IDB group stocks are posting further gains. IDB Holding Corporation is up 1.2%, IDB Development Corporation is rising 2.3%, Discount Investments is up 2.7%, Clal Industries is up 1.7%. IDB today announced that it has ceased talks for selling the control in the group after the group failed to reach an agreement with Kardan.

Koor Industries (NYSE:KOR) is rising 3.1%, and its subsidiary Makhteshim Agan is up 1.5%. Elbit Systems (Nasdaq:ESLT) is off 0.5% after 1.7% opening drops. Nice Systems (Nasdaq:NICE) is up 2.7%, Retalix (Nasdaq:RTLX) is rising 1.8%.

Phone company Bezeq is down 0.6%.