Swiss Market Settles Modestly Higher

(RTTNews) - After swinging between gains and losses till around noon, the Switzerland market gained in strength as the session progressed on Monday and eventually settled modestly higher.

The benchmark SMI closed up by 44.19 points or 0.35% at 12,551.36.

VAT Group rallied 5.43%. Sandoz Group and Swiss Re gained 3.65% and 3.16%, respectively.

Swiss Life Holding, Galderma Group, Logitech International, Sonova and Zurich Insurance gained 1 to 1.6%.

Richemont ended 1.86% down. Swatch Group closed lower by about 1.2%. Schindler Ps, Sika and Givaudan lost 0.4 to 0.7%.

Data from the State for Economic Affairs, or SECO, said Switzerland's unemployment rate held steady in September after rising slightly in the previous month.

The unadjusted unemployment rate stood at 2.8% in September, the same as in August. In the corresponding month last year, the jobless rate was 2.4%.

The youth unemployment rate, which is applied to the 15-24 age group, also held steady at 3.2%.

Data also showed that the seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose to 3% from 2.9%.