More Turmoil As Israel Stocks Plunge Most In Seven Years Amid Perrigo Purge

Well, the new trading week got off to a rather inauspicious start.

Hot on the heels of Wall Street’s worst since 2011, shares in Israel dove more than 5% on Sunday. It was the largest single-session decline since August of 2011 and it came on high volume.

(Bloomberg)

The proximate cause of today’s malaise (well, other than generalized risk-off sentiment) was obviously Perrigo, which dove 30% as investors fret over a $1.8 billion tax assessment slapped on the company by Irish tax authorities.

(Bloomberg)

Perrigo was crushed in New York trading on Friday. Here’s the TA-35 breakdown and as you can see, Teva was massacred as well.

(Bloomberg)

“This sector has been a mess in December and that is an understatement,” Wells Fargo’s David Maris writes, in a note called “Specialty Pharma Weekly: Grinch Comes Early To Spec Pharma”. “Sentiment is negative, the stocks have been acting poorly, and bad news is as common as ringing bells and twinkling lights”, he adds, before asking if anybody saw him on CNBC and then casually throwing in a streaming recommendation:

Did you see me on CNBC on Friday? I also met two of the sharks from Shark Tank in the studio. This weekend, for those interested in drug pricing, the new documentary Drug$ is streaming free on Amazon Prime Video.

Anyway, for 2018, the TA-35 is down more than 4.5%, putting the gauge on track for its worst annual loss in seven years.

(Bloomberg)

In its financial stability report for H2, the Bank of Israel today warned that the rollback of accommodative monetary policy across the world has increased the chances of a “sharp drop” in asset prices. The bank also cited “global developments” as a risk to the world economy.

In other news, it was another “plunge protection to the rescue” type of day in Saudi shares, as early losses were aggressively pared later in the session. This is funny:

(Bloomberg)

To be fair, it’s at least possible that local shares got a boost from some OPEC headlines which suggest there’s growing consensus that the output cuts announced earlier this month will be extended.

U.A.E. Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei was on the tape with a series of ostensibly notable soundbites, none of which are “new” (per se), but all of which tip a steadfast commitment to the cuts. That, after yet another horrible week for crude.