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Despite staying well above the flat line for much of the day’s trading session, the Swiss market ended just marginally up on Thursday as stocks turned a bit subdued past mid afternoon.<\/p>\n
Investors digested the Swiss National Bank’s interest rate decision, in addition to tracking the moves of several other central bank’s including the Federal Reserve, for direction.<\/p>\n
The Swiss central bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged, as widely expected, with the bank’s Governing Board, chaired by Thomas Jordan, deciding to hold the policy rate at 1.75%.<\/p>\n
Banks’ sight deposits held at the SNB were remunerated at the SNB policy rate up to a certain threshold, and at 1.25% above this threshold, the bank said.<\/p>\n
The bank repeated that it is willing to be active in the foreign exchange market as necessary. <\/p>\n
The benchmark SMI, which climbed to 11,333.91 around noon, ended the session with a marginal gain of 21.04 points or 0.19% at 11,209.95, recovering from a low of 11,162.57.<\/p>\n
Sika, up 7.32%, was the top gainer in the SMI index. Geberit rallied 6.25%. Richemont, UBS Group and Sonova gained 4.11%, 3.76% and 3.72%, respectively.<\/p>\n
Partners Group, Kuehne & Nagel, Alcon and Lonza Group climbed 1.8 to 3%. ABB and Logitech International also ended notably higher.<\/p>\n
Swiss Re dropped nearly 5%. Roche Holding ended 2.67% down, Zurich Insurance Group drifted down 1.79%, and Novartis ended lower by 1.3%.<\/p>\n
In the Mid Price Index, ams OSRAM AG shares soared 13.5% after Jefferies upgraded its rating on the stock to “buy” from “hold.”<\/p>\n
Meyer Burger Tech ended nearly 12%, rebounding strongly from recent losses. Straumann Holding climbed 10.4% and Tecan Group surged 7.8%.<\/p>\n
Belimo Holding, Avolta, Swatch Group, VAT Group, Julius Baer and Georg Fischer gained 3.3 to 5%. Clariant and SIG Combibloc also ended sharply higher. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Market Analysis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n