"We are responding to this changed environment and the weakening economic outlook by adapting our business and increasing efficiency"
- Oswald Gruebel, UBS chief executive
Swiss stocks edged higher on Wednesday, October 24, amid better-than-expected U.S. home sales data and improved Chinese manufacturing output, outweighing worsening economic data from the eurozone.
The Swiss blue-chip index SMI, a measure of the largest and most actively traded companies, rose 0.01 per cent to 6,627.41. The broader Swiss Performance Index added 0.04 per cent to 6,114.95.
"People were expecting a pretty undynamic earnings season given the macro drop, so there are few surprises on that front," Philip Saunders, a portfolio manager at Investec Asset Management, said on Wednesday. "Clearly some leading stocks have disappointed, but beneath the surface, there is is some good news as well."
"Europe has negative economic growth and has huge headwinds which are not going to disappear with some Hollywood ending in the next six months or so," said Alex Friedman, global chief investment officer at UBS AG. "I don't think there is any way to say that Europe is about to turn a corner."
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