Swiss Market Ends Flat After Choppy Session
(RTTNews) - The Switzerland market closed slightly weak after a choppy ride on Tuesday as investors mostly stayed cautious, looking for fresh triggers. The Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are scheduled to announce their rate decisions on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
Investors also closely followed the developments on the trade front, and continued to react to earnings updates.
The benchmark SMI ended down 2.45 points or 0.02% at 12,230.58. The index touched a low of 12,168.14 and a high of 12,271.14 intraday.
Kuehne + Nagel and Straumann Holding closed lower by about 2.1% and 2%, respectively. ABB, Logitech International, Alcon and Sonova drifted down 1.2 to 1.6%.
Lonza Group, Sika, VAT Group, Geberit and Julius Baer also closed weak.
Lindt & Spruengli advanced 1.3%, while Swisscom, Nestle, Swiss Re, Swatch Group, Swiss Life Holding and SGS gained 0.5 to 1%.
Tech stock Oerlikon soared more than 18% after agreeing to sell its manmade fibers textile machinery business Barmag to textile machinery company Rieter for an upfront equity purchase price of 713 million francs.
In economic news, data from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs showed the Swiss unemployment rate edged down to a non-seasonally adjusted 2.8% in April, the lowest in fourth month, from 2.9% in each of the previous two months.
Meanwhile, the youth unemployment rate, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, ticked lower to 2.5% from 2.6% in March.
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