Swiss Market Fails To Hold Early Gains, Settle Modestly Lower

Despite holding in positive territory for much of the day’s session, the Switzerland market ended weak on Monday due to a mild bout of selling pressure in the final hour.

With a slew of big name U.S. tech companies set to release their quarterly earnings, and some major central banks, including the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and Bank of Japan scheduled to make their monetary policy announcements this week, the mood in the market remained a bit cautious right through the day’s session.

The benchmark SMI ended with a loss of 26.59 points or 0.22% at 12,214.90. The index, which touched a high of 12,300.07 in the session, dropped to 12,197.09 inthe final hour.

Holcim ended down 2.75%. Straumann Holding and Richemont closed lower by 1.37% and 1.11%, respectively.

Lonza Group, Roche Holding, ABB, Partners Group, VAT Group, Logitech International, UBS Group and Lindt & Spruengli lost 0.7 to 1%.

Sandoz Group climbed 3.68%. Kuehne + Nagel gained 1.08%, while Sika, Novartis and Givaudan ended higher by 0.6 to 0.65%. SGS and Swatch Group posted modest gains.