2023-07-05 16:16:07
Zurich (awp) – The Swiss stock market ended on a negative note on Wednesday. After faltering significantly in the opening phase, SMI rebounded a bit with support from pharma heavyweights, but failed to maintain momentum and lost altitude after the New York open . He finished below the symbolic bar of 11,200 points. Investors were awaiting the publication, in the evening, of the minutes of the June session of the American Federal Reserve (Fed).
In New York, Wall Street retreated in the morning, disappointed by the Chinese data and awaiting the minutes of the last meeting of the US Federal Reserve.
“The negative trend has a macroeconomic component and a geopolitical component,” said Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.
The analyst thus referred to the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) released by the media group Caixin and S&P Global, which showed that activity in services in China slowed its growth in June to experience a the weakest rates of the year, the latest sign of the country’s post-Covid recovery running out of steam.
“Chinese PMIs for June confirm the marked slowdown in the recovery during the second quarter, which requires new concrete support measures from the authorities which are still pending”, commented Xavier Chapard, member of the research and strategy team. of Banque Postale AM.
Investors were awaiting minutes from the Fed’s mid-June currency meeting, where it paused rate hikes after ten straight hikes to rein in inflation. It will be a question of detecting its intentions for the future, knowing that Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed, has indicated several times since that two other rate hikes were very possible this year.
The SMI ended down 0.21% at 11,193.92 points, with a low of 11,159.50 points and a high of 11,214.91 points. The SLI fell 0.54% to 1750.12 points and the SPI 0.35% to 14,741.07 points.
Of the 30 star stocks, Roche (+0.8%), the good Schindler and Swisscom (each +0.3%), Novartis (+0.2%) and Lonza (+0.04%) are the only winners .
The third heavyweight Nestlé (-0.1%) ended in slight decline.
JPMorgan raised Schindler’s price target to neutral. The analyst believes that the order and profit projections made by his colleagues are too timid. He underlined in particular the further increase in margins, proof that the optimization strategy deployed by management is bearing fruit.
Citigroup lowered Lonza’s price target and confirmed “buy”. In the short term, the analyst sees various negative factors such as restrictions in the financing of biotechnology products, weaker demand for consumer health products and currency effects.
The still volatile AMS Osram (-13.3%) finished bottom, behind Temenos (-2.1%) and VAT (-1.9%).
The Austrian-German semiconductor giant could bear the brunt of the growing dispute between China and the West over chips, observers say. Brokers are also reporting that Apple will postpone equipping its connected watches with micro-LEDs. If necessary, this could even call into question the medium-term objectives of the company listed on SIX.
ABB (-0.4%) did not benefit from a price target increase by Barclays which confirmed “equal weight”. Recent profit warnings in industry point to a slowdown in activity in the sector on the Old Continent, according to British analysts. The recovery of the Chinese market has also recently shown signs of running out of steam.
The news front from companies in the broader market remained inert. Evolva (+9.2%) and Oneswissbank (+4.0%) stood out on the winning side and Wisekey (-14.6%) and Highlight (-11.5%) on the losing side.
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