Swiss Market Ends Marginally Up

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland market ended slightly up on Thursday after spending much of the day's session in negative territory. Investors tracked the European Central Bank's monetary policy announcement to assess the likely timing of interest rate cuts.

The benchmark SMI ended the day's session with a small gain of 12.20 points or 0.11% at 11,209.02, the day's high. The index touched a low of 11,138.04 around mid afternoon.

Givaudan, up 8.32%, was the biggest gainer in the SMI index. The stock gained on announcement the company has proposed a dividend of 68 francs per share for 2023, a rise of 1.5%. The group posted an attributable income of 893 million francs for 2023, up from 856 million francs a year ago.

Kuehne & Nagel and Partners Group gained 1.52% and 1.2%, respectively.

Sika, Nestle, ABB and Sonova advanced 0.8 to 1%. Geberit, UBS Group and Holcim posted modest gains.

Lonza Group ended nearly 3% down. Roche Holding and Logitech International drifted down 1.28% and 1.22%, respectively. Novartis settled lower by about 0.8%.

Among the stocks in the Mid Price Index, Avolta climbed 2.7%, while Schindler Holding, Flughafen Zurich and Schindler Ps gained 1.7%, 1.55% and 1.49%, respectively.

Meyer Burger Tech tanked 11.6%. Sandoz ended down 2.3%, while Swatch Group and Straumann Holding both shed about 1.05%.