The Swiss Stock Market Climbed With Support From Defensive Heavyweights

(RTTNews) - The Swiss stock market began the new trading week with a gain. The market received support from the positive performance of the index heavyweights, while financial stocks lagged behind.

The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the U.S. FOMC will all hold policy meetings this week. Investors will also be watching for the release of the U.S. GDP data on Wednesday and the U.S. jobs report for July at the end of the week. The U.S. pending home sales data released in the afternoon had little impact on the market.

The Swiss Market Index increased by 0.22 percent Monday and finished at 7,814.11. The Swiss Leader Index climbed by 0.20 percent and the Swiss Performance Index gained 0.21 percent.

Sika was the top performing stock of the session, with a gain of 5.6 percent. The company's results for the first half of the year were positively received.

Novartis led the way among the defensive heavyweights, with an increase of 0.7 percent. Nestle also rose by 0.3 percent, but Roche dipped by 0.1 percent.