New trading week on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange underway

From today, the trading week on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange changes, and switches to Monday to Friday. The change is intended to bring trading times in Tel Aviv into line with most stock exchanges around the world, as far as possible. Before this switch, trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange had been on Sunday to Thursday since it was founded in 1953.

The hope at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, which for the past decade has been headed by Ittai Ben-Zeev, and also at the Ministry of Finance and the Israel Securities Authority, is that the change in trading times will make it easier for the exchange to be included in international securities indices such as the MSCI Europe.

Trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange will now take place from 10:00 to 17:35 on Monday to Thursday, and on Friday from 10:00 to 13:50 for stocks and most securities and to 14:00 for derivatives.

There will be no new issues on Fridays, and some operational processes will be postponed till Sunday. The exchange will remain closed on the eves of Jewish holidays.

Hope for higher volumes

If stocks traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange become included in major international indices, this will lead to increased trading volumes as it will mean automatic buying and selling of securities in substantial amounts. In the past, Israel was included in emerging markets indices, and began to be defined as a developed market in 2010. Although this was a positive move from an economic point of view, it actually led to lower volumes on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, as Israeli stock received a much lower weighting in the developed market indices.

Now, inclusion in indices such as the MSCI Europe will be expected to raise volumes, which will mean higher revenue for the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. It should be stressed that a decision on whether or not to bring Israel into international indices is partly political, and there is no certainty that it will fall Israel’s way, but changing the format of the trading week is an essential condition for inclusion. ETF managers, for example, have no wish to come to work specially to trade in Tel Aviv stocks on a Sunday.

Last year, trading turnovers on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange broke records. The daily average was NIS 3.4 billion, 56% higher than in 2024. It is not certain, however that adding Friday as a trading day will have a dramatic effect, although trading on Sundays was generally thin, amounting to NIS 1.5 billion on average last year. Time will tell whether the new format will bring a flood of demand from foreign investors.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on January 4, 2026.

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