By Steffen Gosenheimer
ZURICH (Dow Jones)–After the rise in recent trading days, share prices on the Swiss stock exchange fell slightly on Monday – in line with developments on most European stock markets. The franc, which strengthened against the euro, had a slightly slowing effect. It was supported by the Fitch rating agency’s confirmed top credit rating of “AAA” for Switzerland, with a stable outlook. In late trading, investors followed developments on Wall Street, where the indices picked up some momentum after the recent record hunt.
The SMI lost 0.5 percent to 12,262 points. Of the 20 SMI values, there were 18 price losers, Nestle (+0.4%) and Logitech (+0.9%), and only two price winners. 14.4 (Friday: 19.71) million shares were sold.
Roche performed better than the broader market with only a small decline of 0.1 percent. The pharmaceutical giant has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for a companion diagnostic for stomach and esophageal cancer.
In the second row, Swatch benefited from hopes that the economy would pick up speed in the important buyer country China. The Chinese central bank has two important interest rates after various government support measures for the country’s weak economy were recently announced. However, in many cases we are still waiting for details. Swatch rose by 1.2 percent, while the shares of luxury goods manufacturer Richemont, which is also heavily dependent on China, fell by 0.6 percent.
The UBS paper fell by 1.5 percent more significantly. The bank announced the sale of its 50 percent stake in the Swisscard joint venture to its previous partner American Express – without mentioning a sales price. Swisscard was founded jointly by Credit Suisse and American Express in 1998. The exit is a further step in UBS’s cleanup of the acquired Credit Suisse portfolio.
The bottom performers in the SMI were Swiss Re, Lonza and Kuehne + Nagel, with no news, with a loss of up to 1.8 percent.
Sandoz rose in price by 4.6 percent, fueled by an increased price target from analysts at JP Morgan.
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DJG/gos/thl
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 21, 2024 12:01 ET (16:01 GMT)
