Swiss Market Ends On Upbeat Note

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland market ended on a buoyant note on Thursday, in line with markets across Europe, with shares from the banking sector turning in a strong performance.

The benchmark SMI ended with a gain of 202.70 points or 1.93% at 10,719.10, the day's high.

Credit Suisse soared 19.1%, contributing substantially to Swiss market's upbeat close. The stock surged after the lender secured a lifeline from the Swiss National Bank. The lender said that it would borrow up to $54 billion from SNB to shore up liquidity.

Swiss Re, Alcon, Lonza Group, Sonova, Geberit, UBS Group and Givaudan gained 3 to 3.7%.

Logitech, Swiss Life Holding, ABB, Richemont, Nestle, Sika, Holcim, Zurich Insurance Group and Novartis surged 2 to 3%.

Roche Holding shares drifted down and ended lower by 1.53%.

In the Mid Price Index, Julius Baer climbed more than 7.5%. VAT Group surged nearly 6%, while Ems Chemie Holding, Bachem Holding and Zur Rose ended higher by 3.8 to 4.3%.

Temenos Group, Baloise Holding, Straumann Holding, Lindt & Spruengli, Georg Fischer, Barry Callebaut, Helvetia, AMS, Clariant and Schindler Ps gained 2 to 3%.

Swatch Group and PSP Swiss Property ended lower by 1.2% and 1.06%, respectively. Swiss Prime Site drifted down 0.6%.

In economic news, Switzerland's economy is projected to grow significantly below its average this year amid the challenging global environment, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said in its Spring Forecast.

The expert group of the SECO forecast the alpine economy to grow 1.1% this year. That was marginally bigger than the 1% expansion projected in December.

Although the 1.1% is below average, this will not drive the Swiss economy into a recession. The government assumed that there will be no energy shortages with widespread production outages in the coming winter.

Further, the SECO downgraded the outlook for 2024 to 1.5% from 1.6%.