BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Swiss stocks largely moved in a tight band on Wednesday as investors refrained from making significant moves as they followed news about coronavirus spread and looked ahead to the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy statement.
Activity was mostly stock specific with earnings and other corporate news providing some direction.
The benchmark SMI, which fell into the red after an initial uptick, emerged into positive territory for a brief while around mid afternoon, but faltered again to eventually close with a small loss.
The index ended down 4.39 points or 0.04% at 10,272.81 after scaling a low of 10,242.20 and a high of 10,295.52 in the session.
Alcon gained about 2%. Geberit and Swisscom both moved up by about 0.9%, while SGS, Roche Holding and Swiss Life Holding ended higher by 0.4 to 0.6%.
Adecco declined 2.3% and UBS Group slid 2.1%. Credit Suisse lost nearly 1%, while Lonza Group ended lower by 0.6%.
Novartis announced that EU regulators have approved the company's new Piqray drug to treat advanced breast cancer. The European Commission approved sales of the inhibitor drug-also known as alpelisib-for patients suffering from advanced cancer with a PIK3CA gene mutation for taking along with hormonal drug Fulvestrant, the drugmaker said. It was an expected move as the human medicines committee of the European Medicines Agency had already recommended approval of Piqray. The stock ended with a loss of about 0.5% today.
In the midcap section, Sonova gained more than 2.5% and Bucher Industries advanced 2.34%. Lindt & Spruengli, Swiss Prime Site, Logitech and Lindt & Sp Ps gained 0.8 to 1.4%.
Dufry ended lower by about 2.1%. VAT Group slid 1.6%, while AMS and Temenos Group bot shed about 1.4%. Julius Baer, down 1.1% and Clariant, down 1.05%, were the other notable losers.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX