The Swiss Stock Market Finished With A Slight Decrease After U.S. Jobs Report

(RTTNews) - The Swiss stock market opened lower Friday and was range-bound throughout the first half of the session. The market climbed following the release of the stronger than expected U.S. jobs report for October and managed to briefly enter positive territory. However, the market slipped back into the red in late trade.

U.S. non-farm payroll employment jumped by 271,000 jobs in October, which exceeded expectations for an increase of about 185,000 jobs. The strong job growth helped push the unemployment rate down to 5.0 percent. Most investors are now convinced that the Federal Reserve will begin hiking interest rates in December.

The Swiss Market Index decreased 0.22 percent Friday and finished at 8,970.27. The SMI finished the trading week with an overall gain of 0.3 percent. The Swiss Performance Index fell 0.14 percent, but the Swiss Leader Index gained 0.09 percent.

Shares of Richemont were in focus, after the company reported results for the first half of the year that fell short of expectations. Shares of the luxury goods company sank 5.7 percent. The news also impacted competitor Swatch, which dropped 4.3 percent.

Index heavyweights Nestle and Roche both finished with losses of 1.0 percent each. Meanwhile, Novartis closed with a gain of 0.1 percent.

Transocean declined 1.1 percent, Swisscom fell 0.7 percent and Zurich Insurance lost 0.2 percent. All three companies reported results yesterday.

Adecco climbed 1.1 percent. The stock was down over 10 percent yesterday, following its disappointing third quarter report.

Shares of Syngenta surged 4.1 percent Friday. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company is involved in discussions with DuPont regarding a possible combination with its agrochemicals division.

Financial stocks turned in a solid performance at the end of the trading week. UBS advanced 3.2 percent and Credit Suisse gained 1.8 percent.