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STOCK MARKET

Stock exchange in flying start to 2009

The Stockholm stock exchange had a flying to start to 2009 after last year's historic crash. The exchange closed almost 5 percent up on Friday on the back of gains worldwide.

Published: 3 January 2009 10:00 CET
Stock exchange in flying start to 2009

The hard-hit Scandinavian airline SAS was among the winners.

The OMXS index shot up during early trading, on the back of overnight gains in Asian markets. The steep climb gathered pace during the day, despite weak USA statistics which filtered through in the afternoon. By close the index had climbed 4.8 percent to 214.0. Turnover on Friday was however very low.

The winner list was topped by environmental technology firm Morphic, which shot up 48.5 percent to 1.93 kronor ($0.25) for no apparent reason other than the stock had been one of the hardest hit in 2008.

Scandinavian airline SAS also began the year on a positive note after it emerged that German airline Lufthansa is considering a bid for the debt-ridden firm. SAS stock climbed 15.3 percent to 43.70 kronor.

Elsewhere energy and raw materials firms had a strong day with Vostok Gas up 17.8 percent to 8 kronor, PA Resources up 13.9 percent to 13.10 kronor and Lundin Petroleum up 11.5 percent to 45.70 kronor. The finance sector also made gains after a tough autumn with Nordea up 7.9 percent to 59 kronor and SEB 7 percent to 65 kronor.

Confirmation of emergency loans from the US government to bail out car giant GM had knock on effects in the Swedish car industry with Autoliv up 7 percent to 169 kronor.

The Stockholm exchange followed the positive trend across Scandinavia and Europe. Indices in Copenhagen and Oslo saw gains of close to 5 percent. London’s FTSE 100-index climbed 2.4 percent to 4,539.8, Frankfurt’s Dax index was up 3.2 percent to 4,962.0 and the Paris CAC 40 closed 4.1 percent up at 3,349.7.

STOCK MARKET

Swiss stock market opens down after Wall Street chaos

The Swiss Market Index (SMI) stood at 8,771.90 points or 3.6 percent down shortly after the opening of the day’s trading on Tuesday.

Published: 6 February 2018 10:02 CET
Swiss stock market opens down after Wall Street chaos
A trader in New York on Monday. Photo: Bryan R. Smith / AFP

At one point the index was down as much as 4.3 percent. However, the index then began to rally to be down 2.36% to 8,886 points at 9.25am local time.

This is the first time the SMI has been below 9,000 points since September 2017, with the biggest losers early on Tuesday being banks. Credit Suisse shares were 5.2 percent lower while UBS stocks had tumbled 4.5 percent.

The falls on the Swiss index, which includes the 20 largest companies in the country, come a day after the Down Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst points fall in history, shedding 4.6 percent on Monday on the back of investor fears of rising interest rates.

The sharp downturn in the United States wiped out all market gains seen in 2018 to date while Asian markets also took a hit last night.

Monday’s chaos on Wall Street spelled an abrupt end to the buzzing mood on economic markets since Donald Trump’s arrival in Washington – a phenomenon described by the White House as the “Trump Bump”.