ZURICH (Dow Jones)–After the significant premiums on the previous day, the Swiss stock market ended trading on Wednesday with moderate discounts. Participants spoke of increased reluctance ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, which was eagerly awaited in the evening (7 p.m. CET).
Here, a rate hike of 25 basis points was expected with a probability of 89 percent. Because the central bank is faced with a balancing act between combating inflation and the banking crisis, there were also those who believed that interest rates could be paused. However, traders warned that this could be interpreted as an indication of previously undiscovered and deeper problems in the banking sector.
The SMI lost 0.1 percent to 10,782 points. There were 11 price winners and 9 losers in the 20 SMI values. 91.79 (previously: 143.71) million shares were traded.
After the recovery movement at UBS and Credit Suisse the day before, the shares have now fallen significantly again. UBS stocks fell 3.7 percent, and Credit Suisse stocks lost 6.0 percent.
UBS had announced that it was buying back its own bonds with a volume of 2.75 billion euros, which it had only issued on Friday before the deal to take over Credit Suisse. According to media reports, UBS also wants to put a stop to the planned spin-off of parts of the investment bank into CS First Boston. As the Financial Times reports, UBS has entered into discussions with Michael Klein, who should have been involved in the new company and should have led it.
Meanwhile, the shares of the heavyweight Nestle, which are considered defensive, were in demand. The papers advanced 1.6 percent. Meanwhile, the shares of the two pharmaceutical giants Roche (-0.7%) and Novartis (-0.9%) fell slightly. According to media reports, Novartis has abandoned plans to conduct a large-scale study of the cholesterol drug Leqvio in the UK. Instead, a global study should be started.
Daily winners were Sonova with premiums of 1.9 percent. On the other hand, Sika and Geberit were weak with discounts of 1.1 percent each.
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DJG/err/ros
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 22, 2023 12:52 ET (16:52 GMT)
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