Swiss Market Ends Moderately Lower

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland market ended weak on Thursday, after languishing in negative territory right through the day's session as worries about global growth due to stringent tariffs by the U.S. on imports from Canada and Mexico rendered the mood a bit bearish.

The benchmark SMI, which dropped to a low of 12,928.22 around mid afternoon, ended the day's session with a loss of 83.36 points or 0.64% at 13,029.39.

Sonova ended 5.5% down. SGS, Richemont and VAT Group closed lower by 4.77%, 4.23% and 4.12%, respectively.

Sandoz Group ended lower by 3%, while Swiss Re, Straumann Holding and Alcon lost 1.7 to 2%. Lonza Group, Givaudan and UBS Group also ended notably lower.

Galderma Group shared dropped nearly 10% after the company said it expects to see the highest adverse profit and loss impact in 2025 due to its investments in nemolizumab, particularly in the first half of the year. The group booked a 2024 net income of $231 million for 2024, swinging from a year-ago loss of $57 million.

Adecco rallied 8.4% and Geberit gained 6.82%. Geberit's net sales for full-year 2024 increased year over year to 3.09 billion francs from 3.08 billion despite an "extremely challenging" market environment. Net income, however, decreased by 3.2% to 597 million francs, hurt by higher tax rate.

SIG Group, Kuehne + Nagel and Holcim climbed 3.28%, 2.89% and 2.25%, respectively. Holcim ended 1.76% up.

Data from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, or SECO, said the unemployment rate in Switzerland decreased for the first time in ten months in February, though slightly.

The unadjusted unemployment rate dropped to 2.9% in February from 3% in January. In the corresponding month last year, the jobless rate was 2.4%.

The number of registered unemployed persons decreased to 135,446 in February from 135,773 in the prior month.

The youth unemployment rate, which is applied to the 15-24 age group, edged down to 2.7% from 2.8%.

Data also showed that the seasonally adjusted jobless rate stood at 2.7% in February, unchanged from January.