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After a flat start and a subsequently decent uptick, the Switzerland stock market briefly slipped into the red Friday morning, but managed to end the session marginally up despite swinging between gains and losses.<\/p>\n
The mood was a bit cautious amid rising virus cases and lockdown extensions in several parts of Europe. <\/p>\n
The benchmark SMI ended with a gain of 18 points or 0.16% at 11,116.81, after hitting a new 52-week high at 11,143.86.<\/p>\n
The SMI ended with a gain of 34.94 points or 0.32% on Thursday, after losing about 0.3% a session earlier.<\/p>\n
ABB, Partners Group, Credit Suisse and LafargeHolcim gained 1.2 to 1.7%. Shares of specialty chemicals company Sika gained about 1% after the firm said that it has acquired the flooring adhesives business<\/span> of DriTac, a U.S.-based floor covering adhesives company with an especially strong position in wood floor bonding.<\/p>\n UBS Group and Geberit both ended higher by about 0.9%. Swiss Re, Swiss Life Holding, Zurich Insurance Group and Swisscom gained 0.5 to 0.7%.<\/p>\n SGS, Swatch Group and Roche Holding declined by 0.6 to 1%.<\/p>\n Among the stocks in the Swiss Mid Price Index, Logitech moved up by about 2.1%. Schindler Ps, Schindler Holding, Tecan Group, AMS and Baloise Holding gained 1 to 1.3%.<\/p>\n Swiss Prime Site, Kuehne & Nagel, Flughafen Zurich and Cembra Money Bank shed 0.5 to 1.1%.<\/p>\n In vaccine news, the number of Covid-19 vaccines administered in Switzerland from March has reportedly risen to an average of 23,807 a day, up 17% from last week.<\/p>\n Some 166,650 vaccine doses were given between March 18 and 24, according to the Federal Office of Public Health’s Covid-19 Switzerland website. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n