Swiss Market Closes Modestly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland stock market suffered a few mild setbacks on Tuesday after a fairly positive start, but managed to end the session modestly higher with select blue chips posting notable gains.

The mood, however, was cautious right through the session amid doubts about the pace of global economic recovery due to rising coronavirus cases across the world.

The benchmark SMI ended with a gain of 30.13 points or 0.29% at 10,355.57. The index touched a high of 10,403.55 in early trades, but dropped to 10,318.32 in the final hour before recovering some ground to close higher.

On Monday, the index shed over 2%, led by losses in the banking space. Key bank stocks tumbled due to a sell-off in the banking space in markets across Europe amid allegations of illegal accounts and funds transfers by several leaders across the world over nearly two decades.

Alcon shares moved up nearly 2%. SGS, LafargeHolcim, Swisscom, Nestle, ABB and Roche Holding gained 0.7 to 1%.

Givaudan, Swiss Re, Swiss Life Holding, Zurich Insurance Group and Credit Suisse lost 0.6 to 1%.

Among midcap stocks, AMS climbed nearly 4.5%. Kuehne & Nagel moved up 2.4% and Dufry gained about 2.3%. Logitech ended stronger by 1.8%.

On the other hand, Helvetia, Baloise Holding, Sonova, Ems Chemie Holding, Galenica Sante and Vifor Pharma lost 1 to 2.3%. Julius Baer ended nearly 1% down.

Most of the markets across Europe closed higher today. Among the major markets, the U.K. and Germany closed with modest gains, while France ended weak.