Swiss Market Ends Marginally Down

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland stock market recovered after opening marginally lower on Monday, but slipped into negative territory soon and then stayed weak right through the day's session to eventually close slightly down.

The mood remained cautious amid a lack of prominent triggers. Investors focused on U.S. debt ceiling deal negotiations.

The benchmark SMI ended with a loss of 17.93 points or 0.15% at 11,553.23. The index advanced to 11,591.00 in early trades, and dropped to 11,533.47 about an hour past noon.

Geberit drifted down 1.38% and Givaudan ended lower by 1.02%. Sonova, Nestle, Holcim, Roche Holding, Swiss Re and ABB lost 0.6 to 0.8%.

Novartis and Credit Suisse gained 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively. Richemont gained about 0.6% and UBS Group ended 0.5% up.

In the Mid Price Index, Galenica Sante and SIG Combibloc lost 1.6% and 1.1%, respectively. Schindler Ps shed nearly 1%. Georg Fischer, Swiss Prime Site, Barry Callebaut and Ems Chemie Holding ended lower by 0.6 to 0.8%.

AMS rallied 2.75%. Bachem Holding gained 2.53% Kuehne & Nagel gained 1.16%, while Flughafen Zurich, Temenos Group, Dufry and Helvetia advanced 0.4 to 0.6%.

In economic news, Switzerland's industrial production continued to expand in the first quarter, rising by 3.4% year-over-year, but slower than the 5.9% surge in the fourth quarter.

The annual production growth in the manufacturing sector moderated to 4% from 7.7%. Meanwhile, mining and quarrying output fell only 0.1% versus a 1.5% decline in the final quarter of 2022.

Electricity supply also showed a contraction of 2.3%, though much slower than the 10.4% plunge in the December quarter.

Data showed that construction output declined 1.4% after a 6% drop in the preceding three-month period.

Industrial turnover climbed 6.4% in the first quarter, and construction turnover rose 4.3%.

In March, industrial production grew at an accelerated rate of 5.2% year-on-year versus a 0.7% increase in February. Production has been rising since February 2021.