BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss stock market moved largely without direction on Thursday, bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before finally ending the session in the red.
The mild drop nonetheless halted the four-day winning streak in which it had collected more than 200 points or 2 percent.
The SMI dipped 18.55 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 10,260.11 after trading between 10,243.27 and 10,303.02.
Among the actives, Zurich Insurance plummeted 2.60 percent, while Credit Suisse tumbled 1.92 percent, Swiss Life advanced 1.55 percent, UBS Group declined 1.00 percent, Swiss Re sank 0.78 percent, Novartis gained 0.48 percent, Lafarge Holcim slipped 0.20 percent and Swisscom eased 0.16 percent.
The weakness was in line with the rest of the European markets, which spun their wheels as stimulus hopes in the United States hit an impasse.
Germany's DAX shed 64.92 points or 0.50 percent to 12,993.71, while London's FTSE tumbled 94.50 points or 1.50 percent to 6,185.62 and the CAC 40 in France lost 30.93 points or 0.61 percent to 5,042.38.
On the corporate front, Swiss telecommunication services firm Swisscom AG (SWZCF.PK, SCMWY.PK) reported that its net income for the first-half of 2020 declined to 736 million Swiss francs from 780 million francs last year.
Group revenue was 5.44 billion francs, down 2.7 percent from the previous year after currency adjustments. Swisscom continues to expect EBITDA of around 4.3 billion francs and capital expenditure of some 2.3 billion francs for 2020.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX