It’s been announced that Israel is in the process of accepting terms for a truce, and has called a halt to its Gaza operations.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the Tel Aviv stock exchange has had its first down day in seven days. Does this mean that the TASE likes war? Come on! Look at what’s going on in the rest of the world:

Germany: down 1.77%
France: down 1.48%
London: down 2.83%
DJIA: down 2.75% (as I write)

And other markets in Latin America are really slumping today.

What does this mean? It means that war, or lack thereof, is not affecting Israel’s stock market. In other words, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Big job losses here in the States sent markets spinning today, and not just here in the U.S. This news sent oil dropping, which affected a number of exporting markets, like Norway and Nigeria. It sent metals, both base and precious dropping, too (the exception being platinium), which is a bit unusual. That affects producing countries like Chile and Peru.

It means that investors are going to have to look long and hard at the countries and companies they want to invest in, not just play the news and major events.

Last week I told you how Israel’s market, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange was seemingly immune to rockets. Even a reporter for the Haaretz Daily Newspaper, Hagai Amit, wrote, “The bottom line, the stock market is used to rockets.”

I also told you that Israel’s TASE was more likely to be influenced by the global economic crisis than the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Turns out, I was right (so far).

In Taipan Insider, an exclusive report for all members of Taipan Publishing Group’s services, I gave an in-depth report about Israel’s performance through these crises. I said:

Last Monday, the TASE-100 rebounded as high as 550.88.
This Monday, the TASE-100 hit a high of 600.95.

In short, Israel’s TASE is following other major world indices and seemingly putting in a bottom. In spite of this ongoing conflict.

Again, Arab markets in the region are mixed, with the UAE market up nearly 6% and Qatar’s market down nearly 4%.

To me, this “proves” that the conflict is not the major factor in the region right now. The global economy is the big player.

And today, we’ve seen the TASE-100 climb even higher, popping up to 618.24, a rise of 4.5%.

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I’d better change that to “Some Markets.”

While the U.S. markets are all jittery, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange actually ticked higher today. You wouldn’t know that for all the news, though.

Apparently, folks are worried that this three-day crisis between Israel and Hamas will disrupt oil supplies. Now, the oil exporting countries must be smiling at this… First, Israel and Palestine aren’t exporting oil anywhere, nor are they really close to any oil installations or major export routes.

The “threat” - if any - would come from other Arab nations protesting Israel’s bombing raids on the Gaza Strip. If Hezbollah gets involved and Israel goes back into Lebanon, or, heaven forbid, Syria, then Iran may have something nasty to say.

And that would certainly worry oil importers, as Iran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz, a major oil shipping corridor.

It hasn’t done it yet, though, and there have been other times when that was threatened. But there hasn’t been a peep from Iran, really. The International Herald Tribune reported this quote from Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “The horrible crime of the Zionist regime in Gaza has once again revealed the bloodthirsty face of this regime from disguise. But worse than this catastrophe is the encouraging silence of some Arab countries who claim to be Muslim.”

That’s not exactly a message of support for Palestine or Hamas.

But let’s get away from all this political hubbub for a second. Let’s look at what’s happening today on Middle Eastern stock exchanges.

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Hey, Irwin…

Looks like the world is becoming more focused on frontier markets in Africa and the Middle East. Several new ETFs have popped up, making access to these markets so much easier for US investors.

They are Vectors Gulf States ETF (MES:NYSE), the Market Vectors Africa ETF (AFK:NYSE), the PowerShares MENA Frontier Countries ETF (PMNA:Nasdaq) and Claymore’s Frontier Markets ETF (FRN:NYSE). (Note: The FRN includes investments in a number of other frontier markets, including Latin American and Eastern European countries.)

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