Swiss Market Ends Moderately Higher

The Switzerland market ended higher on Thursday, in line with markets across Europe, as some encouraging earnings updates from the region, and hopes about interest rate cuts sometime in the second quarter, helped underpin sentiment.

The benchmark SMI ended higher by 70.54 points or 0.63% at 11,284.18, after moving in a tight range between 11,231.66 and 11,292.07.

Richemont climbed 1.64%. Nestle, Swiss Life Holding, ABB, Swiss Re, Swisscom and Logitech International gained 1 to 1.32%.

Sika and Zurich Insurance Group both ended nearly 1% up. Partners Group, UBS Group and Alcon posted moderate gains.

Lonza Group ended down 0.91%. Givaudan eased 0.35%, while Kuehne & Nagel and Roche Holding edged down marginally.

In the Mid Price Index, Julius Baer and ams OSRAM AG gained 4.12% and 3.75%, respectively. Straumann Holding climbed nearly 2.5% and Georg Fischer advanced 2.3%.

Swatch Group, PSP Swiss Property, Schindler Holding, Tecan Group and Flughafen Zurich ended higher by 1 to 1.75%.

Temenos Group plunged 28.2%, after Hindenburg Research short sold the stock alleging “accounting irregularities, failed products and an illusive turnaround”. Meyer Burger tech ended nearly 4% down.

Survey data from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said consumer morale in Switzerland improved for a third straight month in January led by stronger economic and financial expectations.

The consumer confidence index rose to -41 from -44 in December. A year ago, the score was -35. In October, the reading was -53.

Another data from SECO said Switzerland’s producer and import prices declined for the ninth straight month in January, dropping 2.3% year-on-year, faster than the 1.1% fall in the previous month.

Further, this was the steepest decrease since December 2020, when prices had fallen the same 2.3%.

The producer price index dropped 0.1% annually in December, while import prices registered a sharp decrease of 6.5%.

On a monthly basis, producer and import prices dropped 0.5% in January…