Swiss Market Ends Moderately Lower

(RTTNews) - After edging up a bit at the start, the Swiss market retreated and stayed in negative territory throughout the session on Friday, as investors reacted to corporate earnings announcements and continued to follow geopolitical news.

Worries about inflation and possible monetary tightening by several global central banks rendered the mood cautious.

The benchmark SMI settled with a loss of 85.61 points or 0.59% at 14,462.36, off the day's low of 14,408.96.

Richemont ended nearly 6.5% down. Helvetia Baloise Holding ended 2.76% down. Sika drifted lower by 2.3%. VAT Group and ABB dropped by about 1.7% and 1.6%, respectively.

Julius Baer, Nestle, Novartis, Zurich Insurance and Swiss Life Holding ended down 0.4%-0.1%.

Holcim moved up 5%. The building materials firm's EBIT reached 976 million Swiss francs in the third quarter, up 16.8% from 836 million francs in the prior year quarter, with organic growth of 12.2%. The recurring EBIT margin expanded to 20.9% from 20.7% a year ago.

Net sales totaled 4.662 billion francs, up 15.5% from 4.036 billion francs in the same quarter last year, representing organic growth of 5.1%.

Galderma Group, Partners Group, Sandoz Group, Schindler Ps, Straumann Holding and SGS gained 1.8%-2.4%.

Logitech International, Kuehne + Nagel, Amrie, Geberit, Sonova and Lonza Group also closed on firm note.