The Swiss Stock Market Finished With A Slight Loss

(RTTNews) - The Swiss stock market ended Tuesday's session with a modest decrease. The market began the session with a significant drop, but recovered ground in the afternoon. The positive opening of the U.S. markets helped the market to recover. However, the weak performance of the index heavyweights prevented it from a positive finish.

The market's early weakness was caused by the sharp sell-off in Asia and the weaker than expected U.S. manufacturing data that was released on Monday. Sentiment improved Tuesday afternoon, following the smaller than expected decrease in U.S. factor orders.

The Swiss Market Index declined by 0.18 percent Tuesday and finished at 8,092.53. The Swiss Leader Index climbed by 0.28 percent, but the Swiss Performance Index lost 0.18 percent.

The top performing stock Tuesday was UBS, which surged by 5.4 percent. The banking giant posted turnaround results for the fourth quarter and hiked its dividend for 2013. Credit Suisse finished higher by 0.9 percent and Julius Baer added 0.7 percent.

The index heavyweights all finished in the red Tuesday, which pressured the overall market. Nestle sank by 1.4 percent and Novartis dropped by 1.1 percent. Roche also finished down by 0.3 percent.