Swiss Market Fails To Hold Early Gains, Ends Marginally Down

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland stock market failed to hold early gains and ended marginally down on Friday, as worries about rising coronavirus cases outweighed positive news on the vaccine front.

The benchmark SMI, which moved higher after a somewhat flat start, pared some gains around mid morning, and then kept edging lower as the session progressed to eventually ended in the red.

The index ended with a loss of 16.50 points or 0.16% at 10,523.86. It touched a high o 10,594.65 and a low of 10,518.70 in the session.

Partners Group, Novartis, Credit Suisse and Swiss Life Holding shed 1 to 1.4%, while Richemont and Swiss Re lost 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively. UBS Group ended lower by about 0.5%.

Alcon, Givaudan, Nestle, Swisscom, Roche Holding and SGS gained 0.3 to 0.8%.

Among the stocks in the Mid Price Index, Helvetia and Temenos Group both ended lower by nearly 2.5%. Flughafen Zurich, Dufry and Julius Baer shed 1.8 to 2%.

OC Oerlikon Corp, SIG Combibloc, Tecan Group, VAT Group, AMS and Cembra Money Bank gained 1.2 to 1.5%.

According to data from Swiss healthcare authorities, the government met to discuss imposing stringent restrictions on public life after coronavirus cases in Switzerland rose by 4,478 in a day.

A report in Reuters says the total number of confirmed cases in Switzerland and neighbouring principality Liechtenstein increased to 403,989, the death toll rose by 120 to 6,003, and 184 new hospitalisations kept pressure on the health care system.

Switzerland has reportedly ordered vaccines from Pfizer and partner BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca which are under regulatory review.