After two days of falling shares and crashing bond prices, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange opened Monday morning with gains.

In the wake of the solid recovery in the Far East exchanges earlier, the TASE gained 1.5 percent Monday morning. The dollar - which had climbed precipitously Sunday - continued to rise, but only slightly.

Tensions were high ahead of Monday trading after a day in which many stocks on the Tel Aviv 100 index plummeted more than 5 percent, and the index overall fell 4.4 percent. The TA-25 index lost 4.2 percent and the real estate index dropped 6.1 percent.

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Among mutual funds, losses totaled between NIS 1.3 billion and NIS 1.5 billion, around 1 percent of that industry.

The background to the TASE crisis is the recent sharp drop on bourses worldwide, particularly on the New York Stock Exchange, prompted by the crisis in the American mortgage market.

Exchanges in the United States lost more than 4 percent in the past week, the worst in four years.

The past week also saw major declines in European and Asian markets.

The London Stock Exchange fell more than 4 percent.

As trading resumes today around the globe, Israeli investors will be waiting and watching.

The crisis in the United States began amid worries about the American mortgage and debt markets, which might affect other industries, stop mergers and acquisitions and put the brakes on the American economy.

To add to this, oil prices are approaching the record levels of August 2005.