US equity futures opened unevenly Wednesday following Monday's holiday, with the Dow Jones Industrial averaging down 0.8% to 53,013 and the S&P 500 shedding 0.3%, while Nasdaq futures held flat. At the open, the Dow dropped 0.96%, the S&P 500 fell 0.13%, and the Nasdaq 100 was unchanged.
Oil prices continued to weigh on market sentiment, with Brent crude trading above $98 a barrel — closing in on the psychologically significant $100 mark and the highest level since mid-July. WTI also advanced sharply. Traders pointed to attacks by Yemen's Houthi militia on Saudi Arabian facilities near the Yemen border, which halted production at some plants in the region. The Strait of Hormuz remained a focal point of risk.
"The market remains strongly driven by oil prices and interest rates right now," said one trader. "As long as the situation in the Middle East does not calm down and energy prices remain elevated, risk appetite will be limited."
The prospect of higher rates loomed large. A strong US jobs report over the weekend could fuel expectations for a further Federal Reserve rate hike next week, while the European Central Bank's rate decision on Thursday was widely seen as certain to deliver a 25-basis-point increase to 2.5%, with attention turning to forward guidance.
Anastasia Amoroso of Partners Group told Bloomberg TV that markets were "likely in a kind of digestion phase" amid significant global central bank policy adjustments, suggesting equities could give back gains or enter consolidation.
US oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron rose more than 1% pre-market on the oil-price surge.
In Switzerland, the SMI fell 1.4%, while the mid-cap SMIM gained 0.6% to 3,081.94 and the SPI dropped 0.9% to 19,881.15. By 11:40, the SMI was down 1.3% at 14,094.20.
Novartis drove much of the weakness, sliding as much as 10% intraday to 112.54 francs — the steepest single-day drop since 2020 and the largest loss in the company's history by market capitalization. Roughly CHF 24 billion in value had been wiped out, surpassing the losses during the euro floor-ratio crisis and the early COVID crash. The decline followed a second consecutive clinical failure: Del-desiran, a candidate for a rare muscle disease, missed its Phase III primary endpoint, compounding disappointment from the prior day's failed Pelacarsen heart-drug results, which had already cost shares 3.2% on Monday.
Nestlé (+2.7%) and Roche (+0.8%) provided some support, while Sandoz rose 2.0% after presenting new growth targets through 2030 and vowing to expand its biosimilars business. Oerlikon gained 0.4% after unveiling medium-term targets of over CHF 2 billion in revenue and a corrected EBITDA margin above 20% by 2030, which UBS rated slightly positively. Ascom surged 7.6% on a seven-year, roughly CHF 80 million order from Norway, and SoftwareOne climbed 4.1% on a sharp upward revision to its target price by Kepler Cheuvreux.
Analyst activity included HSBC raising its ABB target to 84 francs (from 82) with a Hold rating, and Barclays lifting its Lonza target to 730 francs (from 680) with an Overweight rating. Burkhalter fell 6.3%, erasing Tuesday's gains, while technology names VAT, Inficon and Comet faced pressure.
