The Swiss Stock Market Climbed On Pharma Strength

(RTTNews) - The Swiss stock market ended Thursday's session to the upside for the first time this week. The market was virtually unchanged Monday and Tuesday and finished with a modest decrease yesterday. The market pared its gains Thursday afternoon, due to the weak performance of the U.S. markets.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen stated yesterday that a December rate hike remains a possibility. Investors will be paying close attention to Friday's U.S. jobs report for an indication of whether that will come to pass. Meanwhile, the Bank of England now seems to be in no hurry to begin raising rates. In its inflation report today they reduced the growth expectations for the economy.

The Swiss Market Index climbed 0.43 percent Thursday and finished at 8,990.16. The Swiss Leader Index rose 0.04 percent and the Swiss Performance Index added 0.41 percent.

The weakest performer of the session was Adecco, which plunged over 10 percent. The recruiter reported a third-quarter net loss attributable to shareholders of 513 million euros, due to the impairment of goodwill of 740 million euros. In the previous year, third-quarter net income attributable to shareholders was 198 million euros.

Transocean also dropped 6.5 percent, despite its better than expected third quarter profit.

Zurich Insurance got off to a positive start, but ended the session with a loss of 0.5 percent. The insurance group reported third quarter results that were largely in line with expectations.

The positive performance of the index heavyweights provided support to the overall market. Roche increased 1.4 percent and Novartis gained 0.7 percent. Nestle also finished higher by 0.5 percent.

Swisscom rose 0.1 percent after it reported 9-month results. Schindler increased 1.3 percent, Galenica advanced 1.1 percent and Swiss Re added 1.0 percent.

Kuoni surged 7.1 percent. The shares have reacted positively to the further restructuring of the Group, the replacement of the management team as well as the results for the first nine months of 2015.