Swiss Market Ends Moderately Lower

(RTTNews) - The Switzerland market recovered and moved into positive territory after a weak start Monday morning, but retreated soon and spent the rest of the day's session in negative territory.

The benchmark SMI, which advanced to 12,355.26, ended the session with a loss of 64.89 points or 0.53% at 12,261.87, about 10 points off the day's low of 12,251.99.

SGS and VAT Group ended down by about 2.3% and 2.2%, respectively. UBS Group shares ended down 1.55% after the lender agreed to sell Credit Suisse's 50% interest in credit card company Swisscard to joint venture partner American Express for undisclosed terms.

Swiss Re, Kuehne + Nagel, Lonza Group, UBS Group, Lindt & Spruengli, Straumann Holding, Givaudan, Geberit, Adecco and Sika lost 1 to 2%.

Shares of biopharmaceutical company Relief Therapeutics soared nearly 16% after an announcement that the firm has received a notice of allowance from the European Patent Office for its proprietary hypochlorous acid solutions.

Sandoz Group climbed 4.62%. Swatch Group gained about 1.25%, while Logitech International and Nestle gained 0.87% and 0.44%, respectively.