SMI Sheds Over 1% As Stocks Tumble In Final Hour

(RTTNews) - After moving along the flat line till the penultimate hour of the day's trading session on Friday, Switzerland's benchmark index SMI tumbled in the final hour, as trade tensions intensified after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose massive tariffs on Chinese imports.

Trump's moves comes following China's decision to expand export controls on rare earth metals.

"I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so," Trump posted on Truth Social. "One of the policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America."

Concerns about France's political situation weighed as well.

The benchmark SMI closed down by 127.74 points or 1.01% at 12,481.41, the day's low.

Alcon closed down by 4.12%. Logitech International lost 3.83%, VAT Group closed 3.2% down, and Lonza Group ended lower by about 3.1%.

Galderma Group, Partners Group, Straumann Holding, Sonova, Amrize, Richemont, Novartis, Kuehne + Nagel and Sika ended lower by 1.2 to 3%.

Nestle gained 0.84%. Julius Baer and SGS closed marginally up.

A report from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said Switzerland's consumer confidence index increased to -37 in September 2025 from a four-month low of -40 in August and above market expectations of -38.