Swiss Market Falls A Second Straight Day

(RTTNews) - The Swiss stock markets opened lower on Friday and remained in negative territory throughout the trading day, finishing in the red for the second straight session.

The market has now given up more than 115 points or 1.1 percent in the last two days.

The SMI sank 96.51 points or 0.94 percent to finish at 10,163.60 after trading between 10,095.22 and 10,235.45.

Among the actives, Givaudan plunged2.09 percent, while Roche Holdings tanked 1.49 percent, ABB tumbled 1.20 percent, Lafarge Holcim dropped 1.19 percent, UBS Group sank 1.10 percent, Novartis declined 0.69 percent, Credit Suisse shed 0.33 percent, Zurich Insurance lost 0.32 percent and Swiss Life dipped 0.06 percent.

The fall was in line with the other European markets, which skidded after weak Chinese data, the U.S. fiscal stimulus stalemate and new quarantine rules in the U.K. that raised uncertainty about the evolution of coronavirus pandemic.

Germany's DAX dropped 92.37 points or 0.71 percent to 12,901.34, while London's FTSE tumbled 95.58 points or 1.55 percent to 1,090.04 and the CAC 40 in France fell 79.45 points or 1.58 percent to 4,962.93.

In economic news, Switzerland's producer and import prices declined in July, the Federal Statistical Office reported on Friday. Producer and import prices fell 3.3 percent year-on-year in July. The producer price index fell 2.0 percent annually in July and import prices decreased 5.9 percent. On a monthly basis, producer and import prices rose 0.1 percent in July.