I-PRAY for Aleph until Gimmel

Despite what any competent expert would have predicted, after publishing my non-expert opinion on Willi Food, the market has responding by not doing much at all. However, I am not deterred. As I have learned from having children, when something doesn’t go your way at first, you should keep trying and trying because maybe things will suddenly change.

In that spirit, here is the first edition of my copious research on the companies in the I-PRAY index. The “PRAY” part of I-PRAY already takes care of all the pesky “quantitative” stuff like prices, ratios, assets and yields. This is great because it leaves my research for the more important “soft” qualities. Think of this as research by accident, which will be best appreciated by investors who wouldn’t even research on purpose.

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אגוד. In general, I don’t like banks in Israel because they hate their customers, but I made an exception for Bank Igud because they give away magnets with Shabbat times every year before Rosh Hashanah. My thinking is that if this doesn’t work out as an investment, at least I’ve done my part to make sure everyone is on time for Street Ma’ariv.

איביאי בית השק. There are several financial companies in the I-PRAY index, but my favorite is IBI. I like them so much that I opened my Israeli brokerage account with them. I was a bit worried that when I bought shares in IBI from my IBI trading account that the world would come to an end, but it turned out to be perfectly alright. I think that investing in Israel could be on the rise, especially now that Investing by Accident’s is climbing higher and higher on the search result for השקעה בקרן נאמנות אזרח ארה"ב.

אימקו. IMCO is “a leading Israeli defense company, specializing in the development, design and production of mechanical, electro-mechanical, electrical and electronic products, assemblies and sub-assembles for airborne, land and naval applications.” This company is clearly the dream for the aliyah minded investor.

אמנת. Amanet is primary a “logistics” company. I have no idea what this means, but thankfully they explain on their website that they are a “multi disciplinary service and consultancy provider.” Phew! Glad we cleared that up!

אסם. Osem is one of our Israeli’s largest food companies and the makers of the finest croutons on earth. In addition to croutons, they also manufacture many nutritionally-challenged foods that you will recognize from your long car trips over Hol Hamoed. They also own many popular Israeli food brands, including טבעול, which has singlehandedly changed the nature of our dinner times by making it possible to feed people who otherwise are unaware of what food is supposed to be.

אפריקה תעשיות. This company is a serious looking manufacturer of metals and ceramics, which is based on the very serious looking pictures on their website. I wish I had as strong feels about metal manufacturing as I do for croutons, but frankly, I have no idea.

ארד. This company does fancy stuff with water management. I like water.

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בזק. Bezek is Israel’s telephone company. Investors seem to be running away from this stock, maybe because no one uses telephones anymore. I like it because (a) it is cheap, (b) people still use telephones, and (c) people definitely still use the internet and Bezek has the best infrastructure for it.

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גולד. This company (full name: Gold Bond Group, Inc.) operates through a company called Conterm (maybe because “Gold Bond” is really something else entirely). Here is what they do, and this is a real quote:

“Conterm Ltd. specializes in storage and handling services as well as providing logistic solutions to all types of cargo and containers. Conterm operates a cargo and container terminal which is itself a port, supplying a complete package of services to importers and exporters.”

Can you believe it? The cargo and container terminal is itself a port! I am not an expert on logistics, but with this kind of setup how could they possibly lose?

גולן פלסטיק. This company is a manufacturer of plastic products for heating and cooling systems. I am not an expert on plastics, but my Friend who is and he thinks PEX piping is the bomb.

                                               

גזית גלוב. Gazit is “one of the world’s leading multinational real estate companies engaged in the acquisition, development and management of income-producing properties.” This company is a nice addition because it gives the I-PRAY index exposure to the real estate sector with a low risk of Getting Eaten by a PFIC. This is because Gazit is also traded on the New York Stock Exchange (TSX), and based on their SEC filings, they seem to take special care to avoid become a PFIC, which would hurt their U.S. investors.

I think you can’t possibly go wrong with a real estate company. I know this because of what I learned from the honest real estate agent who I hired to sell my apartment for me in 2007. She sold it in 30 days when everything else was sitting on the market for months. Her secret was that she simply informed that buyers that “real estate only goes up; it never goes down.”