The Israeli business daily Globes is reporting that Boeing (BA) has selected a training system made by the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Sysytems (ESLT), to be used in U.S. Navy training.

According to Globes:

The fog surrounding the macroeconomic situation in the US will be lifted slightly this week, since it will be loaded with important announcements all crammed into three and a half days of trading. The markets will end the trading week on Thursday, as Americans prepare for the July 4 celebrations the following day.

Employment figures are the really important news and this will be published on Thursday, with an expected 50,000 more jobs lost in June, taking unemployment to 5.4%. Tuesday saw the publication of the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for June, and due to be published Tuesday is the Institute of Supply Management Survey, which tracks the manufacturing sector in the US.

While it sounds opportunistic, many investors think that the best time to invest is when there is ‘blood in the streets’. One industry that has been absolutely crushed is the oil refinery business. With prices of crude oil reaching record high levels daily, refiners are feeling the squeeze. That’s why it’s interesting that the Israeli refiner Delek US (DK) is reportedly looking to make acquisitions in the range of $1 billion.

According to a report in the Israeli daily, Globes:

Is it too early to start making a buy list for stocks expected to benefit from lower crude-oil prices? Maybe not… if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities (as a member of Prime Minister Olmert's cabinet recently warned might happen), the upward spike in oil prices could present an opportunity to buy the stocks at deep bargain levels (from the perspective of someone who believes oil prices can’t stay above $135 a barrel forever -- see my June 12 post).

Indeed, chances are good the stocks could then be the cheapest they’ll get prior to the recovery phase. Declines have gone far already as can be seen from the following price declines over the past year.

The Israel financial daily Globes is reporting that email animation company Incredimail (MAIL) wants to reprice options for five senior managers. The company which works in the space of email animation, clearly has a problem distinguishing between reality and fiction.

BluePhoenix Solutions (BPHX) a leading provider of value-driven legacy modernization solutions was absolutely pounded Thursday on the heels of a couple of analyst EPS downward revisions. The Israeli company saw its stock fall more than 30% as analysts viewed the strong Israeli shekel as impacting earnings.

As reported in the Tech Trader Daily:

Once again Israel has demonstrated that what it lacks in natural resources it more than makes up for in brainpower. Lucky for the world that it’s a renewable resource. News that Azilect, a drug that is co-developed by Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA), has been successful in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, is another in the long-line of cutting edge innovations produced in Israel, and exported to the the rest of the world.

According to a report in Haaretz:

It's not clear what has been happening lately at SanDisk Corporation (SNDK). It fell 27% in the past month, and by yesterday it had tumbled to $24 from its mid-May price of $33. "Barron's" magazine said Goldman Sachs strategist Abby Joseph Cohen listed SanDisk as one of her picks in Barron's mid-year analyst round-table. One can only wonder whether she knows something that we don't.

The erratic swings in SanDisk's share in recent weeks, from $20 to $33 and then down to $24 again, is most interesting, given that there have been no reports of any dramatic changes in flash prices or in the state of its target markets that would justify volatility like this. The flash chip market has been suffering from oversupply and falling prices since the beginning of the year, and this is likely to continue until the end of the third quarter at the earliest. SanDisk's target markets in the US are fairly weak, but those in Europe and the East are far stronger, and there is unlikely to be any immediate change in this either.

The battle over so-called 4G wireless technology is heating up, with major industry players choosing sides between WiMax and LTE, or Long Term Evolution.

Nortel (NT), the Canadian telecommunications equipment manufacturer, gave LTE a boost Wednesday when the company said it would devote its main research efforts to that standard, and hand over its WiMax development to an Israeli company called Alvarion (ALVR).

MSCI recently announced that it had made some changes to its MSCI Israel Capped Investable Market Index Fund (ETF tracking this index: EIS). Among the changes was lowering weightings in hi-tech and insurance, which is not unusual. It also raised the index weighting on the banking sector. Once again, this move is not significant.

It’s only when you look at the individual stock weightings that you may want to scratch your head. Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) has a staggering 44.8% index weighting. My question to the folks at MSCI is what’s the point? Why bother having an index that is essentially comprised of one company? After all Teva is about 9.5% of the local Tel-Aviv index.

Marvell Technology Group (MRVL) appears to be back on its natural track - rapid growth with high profit margins - as was the case from 2002 through 2006. This is also the reason that the company's first quarter report (call transcript) unveiled last Thursday received so enthusiastic a response the following day, as the share vaulted 23% on a record turnover of $1.25 billion. Part of the gain can also be attributed to short positions totaling 26 million shares as of mid-May, by traders who bet on the quarter being a bad one.

What was it that sent Marvell off the rails in June 2006, when the stock began its monumental freefall from the January 2006 high of $35 (split-adjusted) to the $9.8 low in January 2008? The company's announcement on June 27, 2006 of its acquisition of Intel's (INTC) loss-making mobile handset processor division for $600 million in cash was the signal that sent investors rushing for the exit.

According to a report in this morning's Globes, ECtel (ECTX) announced a collaboration with Amdocs (DOX) in which ECtel will team up with Amdocs’s system integration services to market its FraudView product suite. The software allows advanced detection of fraudulent activity as part of customer acquisition, credit risk management, and new subscriber evaluation processes.

Back in August 2007, fellow IOI colleague Zack Miller posted about a newly IPO’d Israeli company called Starlims Technologies (LIMS). The company competes in the Laboratory Information Management Systems market and has over 20 years experience marketing in this space. Its software “manages the collection, processing, storage, retrieval and analysis of information generated in laboratories.”

Almost prophetically, Miller nailed it:

A few weeks ago, Zack Miller and myself were interviewed by CNBC’s Squawk Box. The purpose of the interview was to discuss Israel’s accomplishments over the past 60 years. During the interview, we focused on Israeli companies that are publicly traded in the United States, as well as up-and-coming technologies that could potentially make a global impact over the next two to four years.

Investment Destination
Over the last four years, Israel has become a very popular destination for foreign investors. Global giants like General Electric (GE), Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM) and Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) are only a few of the companies that have made large investments in Israel by buying local companies. In fact, Warren Buffet, perhaps the world’s most famous and successful investor, made his largest non-U.S. investment when he purchased Iscar, an Israeli company, for $4.4 billion. Buffett has since referred to the purchase as a “dream investment.”

Shares in networking chip vendor Marvell Technology  (MRVL)  are surging on the back of a very strong earnings report.  As Tiernan Ray reported:

Sales rose 27% year-over-year to $804 million in its fiscal first quarter ending May 3, beating an average estimate of $784 million. The company’s net income per diluted share of 24 cents, excluding some costs, was almost five times as high as the year-earlier period, and well ahead of estimates of 13 cents per share. Including costs for stock-based-compensation, among other things, profit was 11 cents a share. The company cited stronger than expected sales of “802.11N” wireless router chips, chips for networked disk drives, and printer chips among the sources of higher-than-expected revenue in the quarter. Cost-cutting initiatives helped Marvell boost its gross profit as a percentage of sales to 52%, above the company’s 50% target.

In a widely anticipated showdown, that garnered much media attention, Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson will retain both his jobs, despite the best efforts of the Rockefeller family. The Rockefellers wanted to appoint an independent director and strip Tillerson of his chairman title. Rockefeller pressed Exxon to invest more money into alternative energy technology and take a longer- term perspective, instead of focusing on just making large profits now.

According to the Associated Press report:

The inflation bug has most of us worried. Recently in Israel the CPI was release and showed a 4.7% surge in prices. Obviously, this is not just a problem in Israel. Throughout the world, inflation, especially food inflation, is alive and well, and has been for quite some time. While at first glance, investors might think that food stocks should benefit from higher prices, in practice they have performed poorly over the last few quarters, as they have been unable to pass their higher costs on to consumers.

This is why Wednesday’s earnings report from G. Willi Food International (WILC), was interesting. For consumers, the earnings report signals more food price hikes coming down the road. For G. Willi, it means a return to strong growth.

VMWare (NYSE: VMW), the leading developer of virtualization solutions, has announced the acquisition of Israeli start-up B-hive Networks for an undisclosed sum. Industry experts estimate the price range at tens of millions.  Following the merger in Q3 of 2008, VMWare plans to open an R&D center in Israel, based initially on B-Hive’s facilities and team in Israel.

B-Hive develops technology that measures performance across machines in virtual networks, by monitoring the latency and health of information transfer in the data center. Interestingly, B-Hive’s Conductor was selected as finalist in “Best of VMworld”, a competition held at VMworld 2007. Conductor is currently used by Yahoo, Facebook and eBay among others.

Kudos to Amidex’s Cliff Goldstein who recently shared some time with us on CNBC and spoke about Israeli companies and the market opportunity as a whole. We interviewed Cliff a couple of months ago and it’s worth reading that interview again here.

There is a recent entry to the Israel party called the iShares MSCI Israel Capped Investable Market Index Fund (NYSE: EIS). Recently, we wrote about the EIS being the first ‘real’ Israeli ETF to market. This fund works because it’s got big backing (Barclays’ iShares), exposure to local Israeli firms, and is a departure from previous attempts (see our coverage on the GAF) to package Israeli together with the greater Middle East.

By Heather Bell

Two more of Northern Trust's NETS exchange-traded funds launched on Tuesday. The NETS TA-25 Index Fund (NYSE: TAV) tracks the flagship index of Israel's Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange; the index includes the largest 25 stocks by market capitalization. The NETS PSI-20 Index Fund (NYSE: LIS) is tied to the Euronext Lisbon exchange's index of the largest and most liquid stocks trading on its main market.