Alphabet’s Google scored a win Wednesday after the European Union’s second-highest court overturned a fine of 1.49 billion euros, or $1.66 billion, that antitrust officials had imposed on the search giant for restricting how some websites could display ads sold by its rivals. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, levied the fine in 2019, saying Google had abused its dominance as a search engine and an advertising broker by imposing restrictive terms in contracts with third-party websites. Those terms effectively prevented Google’s rivals from placing their own search adverts on those websites, regulators said at the time. Google provides adverts to owners of news websites, blogs and travel sites that appear when readers use the search function on those third-party sites. Google sells those ads through its AdSense for Search service, acting as the broker between advertisers and website owners. EU antitrust officials said at the time that Google’s alleged misconduct stretched over more than 10 years, but came to an end in 2016.

After a flat start and a subsequent marginal uptick Wednesday morning, the Switzerland market slipped and languished in negative territory right through the day's session as investors awaited the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement. The benchmark SMI ended with a loss of 60.48 points or 0.5% at 11,982.30, nearly 40 points off the day's low of 11,943.70. Sonova ended down 2.29%. Givaudan, Alcon, Richemont and Sika closed lower by 1.5 to 1.8%. Zurich Insurance Group, Logitech International, Kuehne + Nagel, Lonza Group, Nestle, Geberit, Swiss Life Holding and Lindt & Spruengli ended down 0.6 to 1.2%. Sandoz Group, Roche GS and Roche Holding ended higher by 0.87%, 0.83% and 0.42%, respectively. The U.S. central bank is widely expected to lower interest rates, but there continues to be some debate about the size of the rate cut. CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating a 61% chance of a half-point rate cut and a 39% chance of a quarter-point rate cut.

European stocks closed lower on Wednesday as investors made cautious moves, digesting the latest batch of economic data and looking ahead to the Federal Reserve's interest rate move due later in the day. The Bank of England is scheduled to announce its monetary policy on Thursday. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended down 0.5%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 dropped 0.68% and France's CAC 40 closed down 0.57% and Germany's DAX edged down 0.08%, while Switzerland's SMI settled lower by 0.5%. Among other markets in Europe, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Sweden closed weak. Austria and Turkiye ended higher. In the UK market, JS Sports Fashion lost 0.6%. Rentokil Initial ended down 4.59%. Legal & General ended nearly 3% down. The financial services company has agreed to sell its U.K. house builder Cala Group for an enterprise value of 1.35 billion pounds ($1.78 billion). Diploma, Halma, Phoenix Group Holdings, Convatec Group, Spirax Group, Howden Joinery, Natwest Group, Endeavour Mining, Next and Diageo ended lower by 1.6 to 3%. Reckitt Benckiser climbed about 1.3%. Media reports suggest that the British consumer goods giant has started early discussions with potential suitors for a sale of its homecare assets. RightMove, Kingfisher, Centrica, WPP, Standard Chartered, IHG, Vodafone Group and Burberry Group gained 0.5 to 1.3%. In the German market, Puma dropped nearly 2.5%. Brenntag, Symrise, RWE, E.ON and Beiersdorf ended down 1 to 1.4%. Siemens Energy, BASF, BMW, Bayer, Zalando, Commerzbank, Continental and Sartorius gained 1.2 to 2.5%. In the French market, LVMH, Pernod Ricard, Edenred, Air Liquide, STMicroElectronics, Legrand and Kering lost 1 to 2%. Thales climbed more than 2%. Carrefour, Bouygues, ArcelorMittal and Orange ended up 0.6 to 1%. In economic news, Eurostat confirmed that the euro area annual inflation rate was 2.2% in August 2024, down from 2.6% in July.

Stocks saw considerable volatility late in the trading session on Wednesday following the Federal Reserve's announcement of its decision to lower interest rates. The major averages showed wild swings back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing in negative territory. The Dow and the S&P 500 reached new record intraday highs immediately following the Fed announcement but finished the day in the red. The Dow fell 103.08 points or 0.3 percent to 41,503.10, the S&P 500 slipped 16.32 points or 0.3 percent to 5,618.26 and the Nasdaq dipped 54.76 points or 0.3 percent to 17,573.30. The late-day volatility on Wednesday came after the Fed decided to lower interest rates for the first time in over four years, aggressively slashing rates by half a percentage point. With the Fed saying officials have gained greater confidence inflation is moving sustainably toward its 2 percent target, the central bank lowered the target range for the federal funds rate by 50 basis points to 4.75 to 5.00 percent. Most of the major sectors ended the day showing only modest moves, contributing to the lackluster close by the broader markets. However, gold stocks saw significant weakness as the price of the precious metal came under pressure in electronic trading, dragging the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index down by 1.4 percent. A notable decrease by the price of crude oil also weighed on oil service stocks, as reflected by the 1.3 percent loss posted by the Philadelphia Oil Service Index. Semiconductor, software and networking stocks also moved to the downside on the day, contributing to the dip by the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

The stock markets in East Asia reacted positively to the US Federal Reserve's decision to begin the interest rate reduction cycle with a major move of 50 basis points. The strongest rise by far was in Tokyo. The Nikkei 225 index jumped 2.6 per cent to 37,326 points.

In the U.S. bond market, treasuries fluctuated following the Fed announcement before closing lower. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, climbed 4.3 basis points to 3.685 percent.

UBS raises Givaudan to CHF 4,500 (4,200) – Neutral
Barclays raises Commerzbank to Equalw. (Underw.)/16 (12) EUR – Trader
Dt. Bank lowers ASML to EUR 950 (1,100) – Buy

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