Swiss Market Fails To Hold Early Gains, Ends Marginally Down

(RTTNews) - After opening on a firm note Friday morning and edging further up subsequently, the Switzerland stock market pared some gains around mid morning, then drifted down gradually and eventually ended the session in negative territory.

Despite continued optimism about global economic recovery and data from U.S. Labor Department showing a bigger than expected increase in non-farm payroll employment in the month of June, traders chose to take some profits.

The benchmark SMI ended with a loss of 12.19 points or 0.1% at 11,964.84, nearly 100 points from the day's high of 12,061.58.

Credit Suisse and Swatch Group lost 1.76% and 1.6%, respectively. Zurich Insurance Group ended 1.18% down, while UBS Group shed 0.8% and UBS Group slid by about 0.7%.

ABB gained about 1.2%. Givaudan climbed 0.8% and Partners Group advanced 0.6%.

Among the stocks in the Mid Price Index, Cembra Money Bank, OC Oerlikon Corp, Dufry, Vifor Pharma and SIG Combibloc shed 0.4 to 0.8%.

AMS, Kuehne & Nagel and VAT Group gained 2 to 2.5%. Straumann Holding shed 1.79%, while Logitech, Lindt & Spruengli, Sonova and Schindler Holding lost 1 to 1.4%.