Swiss Market Ends Marginally Up
(RTTNews) - The Switzerland stock market closed marginally higher on Monday after moving in a very tight band right through the day's session.
Investors continued to react to quarterly earnings announcements and weigh the prospects of global economic growth as major central banks keep raising interest rates to combat soaring inflation.
The benchmark SMI ended with a gain of 11,145.91, the day's low. The index advanced to 11,216.76 around mid morning.
Partners Group rallied 5.4% and Sika surged nearly 5%. UBS Group, Geberit, Givaudan, Credit Suisse and ABB gained 2.8 to 3.5%.
Swiss Life Holding, Holcim, Lonza Group, Richemont, Zurich Insurance Group, Swisscom and Alcon also ended notably higher.
Roche Holding drifted down 2.7% and Novartis shed 1.76%. Nestle ended with a modest loss.
Swiss Re declined by about 0.5% after reporting first half net income of $157 million compared with $1.0 billion, prior year. The company said the decline was driven mainly by significantly lower investment results as well as first-quarter reserves for the Ukraine war. Swiss Re returned to profitability in the second quarter of 2022, with a net income of $405 million.
In the Swiss Mid Price Index, Schindler Ps rallied 4.6% and Schindler Holding surged 4.1%, while Straumann Holding, Ems Chemie Holding and Georg Fischer gained 3.3 to 3.5%.
Adecco, Zur Rose, Kuehne & Nagel, Cembra Money Bank, Lindt & Spruengli N, Tecan Group, Swatch Group and VAT Group moved up 2 to 3%.
AMS ended more than 5% down. Swiss Prime Site and PSP Swiss Property ended modestly lower.