The Swiss stock market opened sharply lower Monday morning, in the face of Russian attacks which redoubled in intensity in Ukraine and soaring commodity prices. Safe havens such as the franc and gold rose sharply.
The Russian army continued its all-out offensive in Ukraine, bombarding the country’s second city Kharkiv and tightening its grip on the capital Kiev, while a third round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations was scheduled for the day, without much hope of success .
Oil prices were jumping after talks on Sunday between Washington and Brussels on a ban on Russian oil imports, said Jeffrey Halley of Oanda. WTI’s price rose by 7.6% to 124.42 dollars and that of Brent by 8.0% to 127.50 dollars. ‘Foodstuffs, industrial metals and other energy prices have also reached cruising speed,’ he said.
John Plassard of Mirabaud Banque for his part recalled that ‘the invasion (of Ukraine) has caused commodity prices to skyrocket, while Western sanctions are forcing Russia into increasing isolation’.
Investors also rushed to safe havens, the franc having briefly fallen below parity against the euro and gold posting a rise of 1.4% to 1995.92 dollars an ounce.
At 9:23 a.m., the flagship SMI index fell 2.8% to 10,979.32 points, after falling 3.22% on Friday at the close. The SLI lost 3.35% to 1720.30 points and the SPI dropped 2.93% to 13,884.42 points.
Almost all of the ‘blue chips’ were in the red, apart from Roche, which was in balance.
The largest declines were recorded by banking stocks UBS (-6.6%), Credit Suisse (-5.5%) and Julius Bär (-5.9%), as well as luxury stocks Richemont (-6, 2%) and Swatch (-5.6%).
/ ATS