Because of the Iran war, gasoline prices are also expected to rise sharply in Switzerland.Image: KEYSTONE
Mar 2, 2026, 10:59Mar 2, 2026, 10:59
The war between the USA and Israel against Iran is causing price losses on the most important stock exchanges worldwide at the start of the week. However, the local leading index SMI is not falling quite as sharply in early trading as its most important European counterparts. The defensive heavyweight Nestlé is proving to be a support in this country. Other “safe havens” such as gold and the Swiss franc are also sought after.
On Saturday, Israel and the USA attacked Iran and, among other things, killed the Iranian head of state, the religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran, in turn, responded with attacks on targets in Israel and on several US military bases in the Gulf region.
As VP Bank writes, the situation is confusing. “It is currently difficult to assess whether this is a shorter or longer conflict.” The fact is that oil prices have already risen due to fears of delivery delays caused by a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
All indices are falling
The SMI lost 2.0 percent to 13,730 points around 9:20 a.m. The SMIM index for medium-sized stocks fell by 1.8 percent to 3,097 and the broad SPI fell by 1.9 percent to 18,885 points.
Among the blue chips, Richemont recorded the largest losses (-4.9 percent). Geopolitical uncertainties often hit manufacturers of luxury goods harder because they put a strain on demand. Industry colleague Swatch (-5.0 percent) also clearly has to give up. In addition, investors are primarily dumping financial stocks such as UBS, Julius Baer and Partners Group from their portfolios, as the taxes of up to 4.1 percent show.
Bucking the trend, in addition to the unchanged heavyweight Nestlé, Kühne+Nagel in particular made above-average gains with an increase of 1.1 percent. The difficult environment could drive up freight charges.
It is primarily thanks to the heavyweight Nestlé that the SMI is holding up slightly better than the German DAX or the French CAC-40, each of which has clearly fallen by more than 2 percent. For Wall Street, the futures currently indicate losses of more than one percent.
Oil prices under pressure
The military escalation in the Middle East also drove up the price of oil sharply on Monday. North Sea Brent oil reached its highest level since July 2024 at $82.37 per barrel (159 liters), and US oil reached its highest level since June 2025 at $75.33.
However, the prices have now fallen somewhat again. The price per barrel of North Sea Brent for delivery in April was only a good five dollars or around 7.5 percent higher at $78.05. The price of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil rose by more than four dollars to $71.52.
However, the states of the OPEC+ oil cartel decided on Sunday to increase daily production in order to prevent bottlenecks and excessive price increases. However, according to economists, they do not have enough free production capacity to make up for a Hormuz blockade. For Europe, including Switzerland, a prolonged high oil price is considered an inflation risk and a possible growth dampener.
The price of oil is likely to rise further in the coming days and weeks. “With retaliatory measures now evolving into attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the threat to oil supplies has increased significantly,” ANZ analyst Daniel Hynes wrote in a note. Citigroup experts expect Brent prices to trade between $80 and $90 per barrel this week. (pre/sda)