Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical stocks drop nearly 18%
The Israeli pharmaceutical company opened 17.5% lower in Tel Aviv this morning after losing 17.8% on Thursday.
By GLOBESUpdated: AUGUST 6, 2017 13:07Teva Pharmaceutical Industries building in Jerusalem.(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) opened 17.6% down on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange this morning on a large trading turnover after losing 17.79% in the last trading session on Thursday. After cutting its guidance and dividend and reporting a $6 billion second quarter GAAP net profit loss in its second quarter results, the Israeli pharmaceutical company lost 25% on the NYSE on Thursday and a further 13% on Friday.Teva has dragged the TASE down with it. The Tel Aviv 35 index lost 1.53% on Thursday and is down a further 1.06% this morning to 1402.23 points. This morning's losses are essentially closing the arbitrage gap with Wall Street.Moody's has been the first rating agency to react by downgrading Teva from Baa2 to Baa3. This is not a major downgrading but has significance in that it makes credit more expensive for the company.Among the analysts, Credit Suisse has downgraded Teva from Outperform to Neutral and cut the target price from $39 to $25.
