The Switzerland market briefly advanced to positive territory after a weak start Monday morning, but retreated swiftly and spent the rest of the day\'s session in the red as investors stayed wary of picking up stocks amid a lack of significant triggers.
Investors looked ahead to the Swiss National Bank\'s monetary policy announcement, due later in the week.
The benchmark SMI ended with a loss of 41.07 points or 0.34% at 12,003.52, nearly 50 points off the day\'s low of 11,955.08.
Straumann Holding ended down by 2.71%. Alcon drifted lower by 2.34%. Sonova dropped 1.88%, while Lonza and Novartis both ended lower by about 1.55%.
Richemont lost 1.22%, while SIG Group, Roche Holding, Partners Group, Logitech International, Lindt & Spruengli and Sika lost 0.7 to 1%.
UBS Group rallied 2.15%. Julius Baer and Swiss Re gained 1.78% and 1.15%, respectively. Zurich Insurance Group, ABB, Swiss Life Holding and Schindler Ps posted notable gains.
On the economic front, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said that the Swiss economy is set to undergo a significantly below-average growth this year as low capacity utilization in industrial output and high financing costs are set to damp investments.
Although the economic growth outlook for 2024 was raised to 1.2% from 1.1%, this would mean that the Swiss economy is growing at a significantly below-average rate, the expert group of the SECO said.
With the gradual global economic recovery, growth is expected to normalize to 1.7% in 2025, the agency added.
The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 2.4% in 2024 and 2.6% in 2025. Both figures were revised up by one percentage point.
Further, inflation is seen easing to 1.4% in 2024, which was slightly below the previous forecast of 1.5%. The projection for next year was retained at 1.1%.