Swiss stocks advanced for a fifth day as demand exceeded supply at an auction of Spanish debt and investors speculated that a report tomorrow may show U.S. payrolls expanded last month.
Zurich Financial Services AG, Switzerland’s biggest insurer, and SGS SA, which provides industrial inspection and testing, added more than 1 percent. Novartis AG led gains in health-care shares.
The Swiss Market Index, a measure of the biggest and most actively traded companies, rose 0.5 percent to 5,681.57 at the close in Zurich. The gauge has rebounded 19 percent from this year’s low on Aug. 10 as the euro area’s policy makers intensified their efforts to resolve the region’s debt crisis. The broader Swiss Performance Index climbed 0.4 percent today.
“The French and Spanish bond auctions were well received and priced,” Matthias Fankhauser, a fund manager at Clariden Leu in Zurich, said in an interview. “Until now, we just had disasters on that front. Professional investors are in the market trying to buy; they all know that if we get solutions, there is more upside.”
Spain sold 3.75 billion euros ($5.1 billion) of notes and had to pay the most since at least 2005 to borrow for five years. Investors ordered more than twice the amount sold. France auctioned 4.3 billion euros of debt and managed to sell a 10- year bondat 3.18 percent, less than at a previous auction on Nov. 3.
U.S. Payrolls
A report in the U.S. tomorrow may show payrolls climbed by 125,000 workers after rising by 80,000 in October, according to the median forecast of 88 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The jobless rate probably held at 9 percent.
“Excepting any surprises, it’s going to be tomorrow’s non- farm payrolls that stand to provide the next key direction for markets,” Terry Pratt, an institutional trader at IG Markets in Melbourne, wrote in a note today.
Switzerland’s economy weakened in the third quarter as companies cut spending and exports slumped. Gross domestic product rose 0.2 percent from the second quarter, when it increased a revised 0.5 percent, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in Bern said today. Exports of goods and services fell 1.2 percent from the second quarter and investment including construction slipped 1 percent.
Zurich Financial climbed 1.4 percent to 202.80 Swiss francs after saying solvency test ratios “remain resilient.”
SGS added 1.2 percent to 1,557 francs. Natixis included the shares in its basket of “protection” stocks that are least exposed to contagion from the debt crisis.
Novartis added 1.2 percent to 49.80 francs and Actelion Ltd. added 2.2 percent to 32.49 francs. Roche Holding AG increased 1.6 percent to 147.30 francs.
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