Swiss stock market takes slight tumble as war in Middle East escalates
The war in the Middle East is leading to losses on the world's major stock exchanges at the start of the week. However, the Swiss Market Index (SMI) did not fall quite as sharply in early trading as its key European counterparts.
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Swiss stock market takes slight tumble as war in Middle East escalates
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On the stock market, food giant Nestlé is showing resilience, while gold and the Swiss franc are in demand.
On Saturday, Israel and the United States launched attacks on Iran, killing the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among other officials. Tehran responded with attacks on targets in Israel and on several US military bases in the Gulf region.
As VP Bank stated, the situation remains unclear: “Whether this will be a shorter or longer conflict remains difficult to assess at this time.” Oil prices have already risen due to fears of supply delays caused by a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
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All indexes falling
The SMI lost 2.0%, dropping to 13,730 points at around 09:20 on Monday. The SMIM index for mid-caps fell by 1.8% to 3,097, and the broad SPI by 1.9% to 18,885 points.
Watchmaker Richemont (-4.9%) recorded the biggest losses among the blue chips. Geopolitical uncertainties often hit luxury goods manufacturers harder, as they weigh on demand. Industry peer Swatch (-5.0%) also suffered significant losses.
Investors are mainly dumping financial stocks such as UBS, Julius Baer and Partners Group from their portfolios, as shown by the losses of up to 4.1%.
+ New Nestlé boss plots strategic overhaul to reignite growth
In addition to Nestlé, logistics and transport firm Kühne+Nagel in particular bucked the trend with an above-average gain of 1.1%. The ongoing conflict and escalation in the Middle East could even drive up freight charges.
It is primarily thanks to Nestlé that the SMI is holding up somewhat better than the German DAX or the French CAC 40, which are both down by more than 2%. On Wall Street, futures are currently pointing to losses of more than 1%.
Translated from German with AI/gw
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