Swiss Market Ends Marginally Up

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland market bucked the negative trend seen across Europe, and managed to close marginally up on Thursday as stocks recovered gradually after a weak start and a subsequent long spell in negative territory.

The Swiss National Bank's decision to raise interest rate by 25 basis points and its signal that more such moves are likely to counter inflationary pressures weighed on the market.

The benchmark SMI, which slid to 11,070.61 in early trades, losing more than 100 points in the process, ended the day's session with a small gain of 9.77 points or 0.09% at 11,183.42.

Logitech rallied nearly 3%. Richemont surged 1.8% and Givaudan climbed about 1.15%. Sonova, Alcon, Kuehne & Nagel and Swiss Re posted modest gains.

UBS Group and Swiss Life Holding lost 1.05% and 0.86%, respectively. ABB, Novartis and Holcim ended lower by 0.4 to 0.52%.

In the Mid Price Index, Meyer Burger Tech soared nearly 9%. DocMorris surged 4.4%. Straumann Holding and Swatch Group gained about 1.7% and 1.3%, respectively.

Clariant, Georg Fischer and AMS gained 0.7 to 1%.

SIG Combibloc, Bachem Holding, PSP Swiss Property, Julius Baer and Swiss Prime Site lost 1 to 1.6%.

The Swiss National Bank continued its policy tightening with yet another hike to its interest rates, but at a slower pace as expected, and signaled more such moves to counter the rising inflationary pressures.

Switzerland's central bank hiked its policy rate by 25 basis points to 1.75 percent on Thursday. The new rate applies from June 23.

This was the fifth straight rate hike. However, the bank slowed the pace of rate hikes from half a percentage point increase in both March this year and in December 2022, and by 75 basis points in September 2022.

"It cannot be ruled out that additional rises in the SNB policy rate will be necessary to ensure price stability over the medium term," the bank repeated.

The Swiss economy is forecast to log a moderate growth for the remainder of the year. The growth in gross domestic product is seen at around 1 percent due to subdued foreign demand, high inflation and restrictive financial conditions, the SNB said.