Swiss Market Ends Moderately Lower
(RTTNews) - The Switzerland market closed moderately lower on Monday as persisting worries about global economic growth, uncertainty about interest rates and lingering concerns about political uncertainty and tariff threats weighed on sentiment.
The benchmark SMI closed down 90.19 points or 0.76% at 11,701.72 after scaling a low of 11,651.45 and a high of 11,735.81 intraday.
Holcim ended nearly 4% down. VAT Group and Partners Group closed lower by 2.74% and 2.66%, respectively. Straumann Holding weakened by 2.14%.
Lonza Grouplost 1.73% and UBS Group ended lower by 1.61%. Schindler Ps, Sandoz Group, ABB, Zurich Insurance Group, Alcon and Sonova closed lower by 1 to 1.4%. Julius Baer, Swatch Group, Roche Holding, SGS and Kuehne + Nagel also ended weak.
Adecco gained about 1.1%. Nestle and Swisscom posted modest gains.
Survey results from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, or SECO, showed that Swiss consumer confidence strengthened notably in December from the last year.
The consumer sentiment index rose to -30.3 in December from -44.4 last year, the data showed. All four sub-components of the index improved from the last year's level. The economic outlook indicator advanced moderately to -23.2 from -28.5 a year ago.
Meanwhile, the past financial situation sub-index registered a sharp rebound in December, to -44.9 from -63.5. Likewise, the financial outlook index hit -25.1, up from -45.7 in the prior year.
The indicator measuring the time to make major purchases reached -28.1 compared to -39.8 in the previous year.
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