Swiss Market Fails To Hold Early Gains, End Just Marginally Up

(RTTNews) - Despite staying well above the flat line for much of the day's trading session, the Swiss market ended just marginally up on Thursday as stocks turned a bit subdued past mid afternoon.

Investors digested the Swiss National Bank's interest rate decision, in addition to tracking the moves of several other central bank's including the Federal Reserve, for direction.

The Swiss central bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged, as widely expected, with the bank's Governing Board, chaired by Thomas Jordan, deciding to hold the policy rate at 1.75%.

Banks' sight deposits held at the SNB were remunerated at the SNB policy rate up to a certain threshold, and at 1.25% above this threshold, the bank said.

The bank repeated that it is willing to be active in the foreign exchange market as necessary.

The benchmark SMI, which climbed to 11,333.91 around noon, ended the session with a marginal gain of 21.04 points or 0.19% at 11,209.95, recovering from a low of 11,162.57.

Sika, up 7.32%, was the top gainer in the SMI index. Geberit rallied 6.25%. Richemont, UBS Group and Sonova gained 4.11%, 3.76% and 3.72%, respectively.

Partners Group, Kuehne & Nagel, Alcon and Lonza Group climbed 1.8 to 3%. ABB and Logitech International also ended notably higher.

Swiss Re dropped nearly 5%. Roche Holding ended 2.67% down, Zurich Insurance Group drifted down 1.79%, and Novartis ended lower by 1.3%.

In the Mid Price Index, ams OSRAM AG shares soared 13.5% after Jefferies upgraded its rating on the stock to "buy" from "hold."

Meyer Burger Tech ended nearly 12%, rebounding strongly from recent losses. Straumann Holding climbed 10.4% and Tecan Group surged 7.8%.

Belimo Holding, Avolta, Swatch Group, VAT Group, Julius Baer and Georg Fischer gained 3.3 to 5%. Clariant and SIG Combibloc also ended sharply higher.