Swiss stocks experienced persistent sales pressure on Friday, mirroring the trend seen across many major European markets. This was due to increased geopolitical tensions and uncertainties surrounding the Federal Reserve's interest rate forecasts.
The Swiss Market Index (SMI), consistently under-performing throughout the trading day, closed with a loss of 195.34 points, or 1.67%, at 11,495.79.
Every constituent of the SMI recorded losses. Richemont, Novartis, and Roche Holding suffered downturns of 2.76%, 2.47%, and 2.4% respectively. Nestle, Logitech International, and Swiss Re also posted declines in the region of 1.67 to 2%.
Further losses were incurred by UBS Group, Sika, ABB, Sonova, Zurich Insurance Group, Kuehne & Nagel and Swisscom, with these entities seeing downturns between 1 and 1.4%.
Within the Mid Price Index, Julius Baer, Swatch Group, and Temenos Group suffered losses between 2 and 2.2%. Additional decreases were observed in BKW, Adecco, Avolta, Clariant, Helvetia, Flughafen Zurich, ams OSRAM AG, PSP Swiss Property, Galenica Sante and Ems Chemie Holding, which all ended down between 0.7 and 1.6%.
On a more positive note, shares in Meyer Burger Tech, VAT Group, Georg Fischer and Lindt & Spruengli did achieve increases.
In economic news, survey results from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) revealed that Swiss consumer confidence reached its highest level in eight months in March. Despite this improvement, the consumer confidence index, which rose to -38.0 in March from -42.3 in the previous month, remained below its long-term average.
