SMI Ends Slightly Higher

(RTTNews) - After hitting a fresh high in early trades and suffering a setback soon thereafter, the Switzerland stock market recovered but struggled to hold gains on Friday as investors chose to take some profits.

The market eventually ended flat. The benchmark SMI, which rose to 10,755.68, ended the session with a small gain of 5.81 points, or 0.05%, at 10,730.15. The index touched a low of 10,708.40 in late afternoon trades.

On Monday, the index ended up 44.97 points, or 0.42%. On the final session of the previous week, the index had gained 0.99%.

Among the gainers, Geberit ended nearly 1% up. Swatch Group, Roche Holding, SGS, Sika and Givaudan gained 0.3 to 0.6%.

Credit Suisse gained about 0.5%. The U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and major exchanges have fined Credit Suisse's U.S.-based securities business $6.5 million for supervisory failings. "We are pleased to have resolved these matters with FINRA and these exchanges," a spokesman for Credit Suisse said on Tuesday.

Swiss Life Holding declined by about 1.1%. Swiss Re shed 0.5%, while Zurich Insurance Group, Alcon and UBS Group ended with modest losses.

Among the stocks in the midcap section, PSP Swiss Property gained 1.6%, Swiss Prime Site ended up 1.43%.

Schindler Holding, Partners Group, Straumann Holding, VAT Group, Sunrise Communications, Flughafen Zurich and Vifor Pharma gained 0.7 to 1.2%.

Julius Baer declined 1.2%, while BB Biotech and Lindt & Spruengli both ended nearly 1% down.

On the economic front, the Swiss investor sentiment index rose by 16.4 points to 12.5 in December 2019 from -3.9 in the previous month, compared to -30.5 in the corresponding month of 2018 and reaching its highest reading since May 2018.

On the other hand, the assessment of the current economic situation declined to 8.3 from 11.5 in November and 16.0 a year earlier.

Among other major markets in Europe, the U.K., Germany and France ended modestly higher. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended up 0.21%.