After five days of nervous ups and downs, the Swiss stock exchange closed the week on a positive note, climbing over the 6,000-point mark.
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The Swiss Market Index of leading blue chip companies finished Friday trading at 6,099.62 points, or 6.7 per cent higher than Thursday’s close.
Shares of the pharmaceutical giant Novartis were up 11.95 per cent to SFr59.50 ($52.47) while Nestlé rose 7.33 per cent to SFr43.95 per share.
Stock in UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, failed to perform even after the announcement of a government rescue package worth over SFr60 billion on Thursday.
The bank’s shares lost 4.9 per cent on Friday, settling to SFr18.16.
In Frankfurt, the DAX index closed 3.4 per cent higher and London’s FTSE 100 finished the day up 5.2 per cent.
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“Profits stay private, state takes the losses”
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Rudolf Strahm, a finance expert and former price regulator, has taken a critical view of the move and explains to swissinfo how he would have handled the situation differently. Most commentators welcomed the government’s rescue package, seeing it as a necessary evil. Strahm, a former Social Democratic Party parliamentarian, argues that this bailout should be…
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But commentators were quite harsh in their criticism of UBS, the main recipient of the bailout plan. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung said the bailout was a “high price for a valuable commodity”. “The announcement of support on Thursday for UBS and Switzerland’s financial system was like a peal of thunder.” The package, the NZZ continued,…
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.