Swiss Market Ends Notably Lower
(RTTNews) - After a positive start and a subsequent long spell along the unchanged line, the Switzerland stock market started sliding around mid afternoon on Tuesday and eventually ended the session on a very weak note.
The benchmark SMI ended down 139.70 points or 1.11% at 12,411.58, the day's low.
Richemont and Roche Holding both ended lower by about 2.65%. Lonza Group, Geberit and Partners Group declined 2.1 to 2.3%. Sika, SGS, Givaudan, Alcon, Logitech and ABB ended lower by 1.1 to 1.5%.
Credit Suisse and Swisscom moved up 0.85% and 0.71%, respectively. Swiss Re and Novartis closed with modest gains.
Among the stocks in the Mid Price Index, Straumann Holding shed 4.1%. VAT Group declined 3.8%, while Tecan Group, Georg Fischer, Clariant, Sonova, AMS and SIG Combibloc lost 2.5 to 3.1%.
Lindt & Spruengli, Kuehne & Nagel, Zur Rose, Schindler Ps and Logitech also declined sharply lower.
Vifor Pharma soared nearly 13% after Australian biopharmaceutical giant CSL said it would buy the Swiss drugmaker for $11.7 billion.
Ems Chemie Holding rallied 4% and Dufry gained about 1.6%.
In economic news, data from the Swiss Federal Statistiscal Office showed the Producer Price Inflation in Switzerland decreased to 0.5% month-on-month in November from 0.6% a month earlier.
Switzerland's producer and import prices increased 5.8% from a year earlier in November, accelerating from a 5.1% rise in the previous month. It was the highest producer and import inflation since October 1981. On a monthly basis, producer and import prices advanced 0.5% in November, following a 0.6% rise in October.
