Swiss stocks experienced a decline on Wednesday, reflecting the ongoing regional slowdown in Europe, as evidenced by the Swiss Market Index closing the trading session down 0.13%. It was a particularly active day for earnings among several companies in Switzerland, including the renowned drugmaker Roche, logistics leader Kuehne + Nagel International, specialty chemicals firm Ems-Chemie, and textile machinery manufacturer Rieter. Roche's shares saw an increase of 1.84% after the company announced third-quarter group sales reaching an impressive 15.14 billion francs.
This marks a significant rise compared to the previous year’s figures of 14.27 billion francs. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical powerhouse reaffirmed its full-year guidance for 2024, highlighting expectations for a mid-single-digit percentage increase in group sales, along with a high-single-digit growth in core earnings per share at constant exchange rates. Analysts at Barclays noted, “3Q24 was a decent sales quarter for Roche, particularly within their Pharma division where products like Vabysmo and Hemlibra exceeded expectations.
However, Tecentriq did not perform as strongly, while Actemra significantly exceeded projections, which largely compensated for some lower-than-expected performance on certain other metrics.” They continued, “The overall performance aligns with our initial expectations, suggesting no significant controversy in the reported results, except for a minor miss in the diagnostics segment.” In other news, S&P Global Ratings made the decision to revise its outlook on Givaudan to stable, previously negative.
The affirmation of its A-/A-2 ratings stems primarily from the Swiss specialty ingredients manufacturer achieving robust volume growth in 2024 alongside increased sales figures. However, Givaudan’s stock saw a slight decline of 0.47% as the market closed..