Swiss Market Ends On Strong Note

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland stock market climbed to a new record high on Thursday with investors indulging in some brisk buying at several counters amid renewed optimism about growth.

The benchmark SMI ended with a big gain of 259.94 points or 2.07% at 12,790.89, after scaling a new high at 12,823.30.

Novartis surged up 5.8% after the company launched a new share buyback worth up to $15 billion to be executed by the end of 2023.

ABB gained about 3% and Alcon advanced 2.6%. Sika, UBS Group, Roche Holding, Logitech and Swiss Life Holding ended higher by 1.6 to 2.1%.

Lonza Group, Nestle, Swisscom, SGS, Givaudan and Zurich Insurance Group gained 1 to 1.4%.

Swiss Re firmed by 1.35% after appointing new digital chief in a management shake-up.

In the Swiss Mid Price Index, Kuehne & Nagel, Ems Chemie Holding and Julius Baer gained 2 to 3%.

Lindt & Spruengli, Adecco, Clariant, Dufry, Temenos Group, Flughafen Zurich, Baloise Holding, Georg Fischer, Schindler Ps and Lindt & Spruengli also closed notably higher.

The Swiss National Bank maintained its expansionary monetary policy, as widely expected. Policymakers of the central bank decided to retain the policy rate and interest on sight deposits at the SNB at -0.75%.

The bank reiterated that it is willing to intervene in the foreign exchange market as necessary, in order to counter upward pressure on the Swiss franc.

The bank said supply bottlenecks are likely to persist for some time yet, leading to price increases for the goods concerned. This situation is likely to ease over the medium term, however, with inflation abroad dropping back to more moderate levels.

The bank forecast consumer prices to rise 0.6% this year, up from the previous forecast of 0.5%.

Inflation is expected to rise to 1% next year instead of 0.7% projected in September. The outlook for 2023 was left unchanged at 0.6%. .

The central bank expects Swiss GDP to grow by around 3.5% this year, slightly bigger than the 3% estimated previously.

The SNB anticipated a continuation of the economic recovery next year, with the economy expanding around 3% in 2022.