Zurich (awp) – The Swiss Stock Exchange should begin the last session before Christmas with little enthusiasm, most of the participants having already deserted the floor in anticipation of the end-of-year celebrations. A few rare company announcements and macroeconomic data should nevertheless fuel Monday's session.
Wall Street ended higher on Friday evening, inspired by an indicator which eased the market's fears of seeing inflation resist or even accelerate in the United States.
“This rebound follows fresher-than-expected inflation data. This helped ease market concerns over the Federal Reserve's forecast of an interest rate cut in 2025,” he said. John Plassard of Mirabaud Banque in a comment.
The positive trend was also supported by the narrow avoidance on Saturday of a budgetary paralysis in the United States (“shutdown”) which would have sent hundreds of thousands of civil servants home for the holidays without pay.
For Mr. Plassard, “European indices should open slightly higher in the wake of the closing of the American markets on Friday and the signing of a last minute agreement temporarily avoiding a partial closure of the American government. Volumes should however be low on Christmas Eve.
On the macroeconomic agenda this Monday are the consumer confidence index for December in the United States, growth in the 3rd quarter in the United Kingdom and the UBS-CFA index for December in Switzerland.
Around 8:14 a.m. on the Swiss Stock Exchange, the flagship SMI index was preparing to open with a modest increase of 0.08% to 11,393.83 points, after dropping 0.26% on Friday at the close, according to prior indications provided by the Julius Bär bank.
Almost all of the star stocks were in the green, with the notable exception of Sika (-0.4%). Goldman Sachs analysts lowered the chemical giant's price target for the construction sector, but confirmed the buy recommendation.
Swisscom (+0.1%) did not pay much attention to the green light from the Italian authorities for the acquisition of Vodafone Italia. The blue giant plans to finalize the transaction by the first quarter of 2025.
The other star stocks, including heavyweights Novartis, Roche and Nestlé, moved with the market.
On the general SPI index, SoftwareOne (-3.4%) detracted. Research Partners lowered the software distributor's price target and recommendation.
Swissquote (-1.4%) also fell significantly, while the other values of the index were in the green.
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