Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has increased its overall stake in VeriSign, a provider of Internet domain-name registry services. Berkshire insurance unit Geico and pension plans of other Berkshire businesses bought a total of 143,424 VeriSign shares from Dec. 20 through Tuesday for a total of $28.5 million, an average price of $199.05 each. Geico added 14,921 of the shares to lift its investment to 7,920,402 VeriSign shares, while the pensions bought 128,503 shares to boost their stake to 5,272,947 VeriSign shares. Overall, Berkshire Hathaway now owns 13,193,349 VeriSign shares, according to a form Buffett’s firm filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It remains the largest shareholder with a stake of more than 10%. Berkshire Hathaway also bought more VeriSign stock earlier this month, along with shares of Occidental Petroleum and satellite-radio firm Sirius XM Holdings.

The Swiss market closed on a firm note on Friday, in line with markets across Europe, as investors picked up stocks from across several sectors. The benchmark SMI closed up 101.06 points or 0.88% at 11,589.34, slightly off the day's high of 11,597.29. UBS Group climbed 2.14%. Julius Baer, Lindt & Spruengli, Novartis, Partners Group, Kuehne + Nagel, Swatch Group, SIG Group, Lonza Group, Logitech International and Swiss Re gained 1 to 1.53%. Geberit, Richemont, Alcon, Adecco, Givaudan, Schindler Ps and ABB advanced 0.7 to 1%. Straumann Holding, Sika, Nestle and Swisscom closed modestly higher. ams OSRAM AG rallied 5.3%. Galderma climbed about 2.3%. Galenica Sante, Roche Holding, Swiss Prime Site, Georg Fischer, PSP Swiss Property, Temenos Group and BKW also closed on firm note. Shares of biopharmaceutical company Relief Therapeutics surged more than 8% following an announcement that it expects to sign a definitive agreement on its potential reverse merger with US-based Renexxion in the first quarter of 2025.

Europe
European stocks closed higher on Friday, as investors made some purchases at several counters as markets resumed trading after Christmas holidays. Activity was a bit subdued in most of the markets in the region amid a lack of triggers, and ahead of the New Year holidays coming up next week. France's new premier Francois Bayrou has vowed to sharply narrow the nation's deficit to close to 5 percent of GDP, a level his predecessor unsuccessfully tried to reach. Bank stocks found support amid a surge in regional government bond yields. Energy firms attracted buyers as oil prices climbed up on expectations economic stimulus efforts will prompt a recovery in China, the world's second-largest economy. The pan European Stoxx 600 gained 0.67%. Germany's DAX closed higher by 0.68%, France's CAC 40 advanced 1% and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 edged up 0.16%. Switzerland's SMI gained 0.88%. Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Turkiye closed higher. Poland edged up marginally, while Ireland and Russia ended weak. In the UK market, Centrica rallied about 2.3% after the company announced the start of the £300m extension of its share buyback, which is due to be completed by the end of September 2025. Diageo, BP, Pearson, Coca-Cola HBC, United Utilities, HSBC Holdings and Aviva also closed higher.

United States
U.S. stocks tumbled on Friday and the major averages all closed notably lower with the tech-laden Nasdaq suffering a more pronounced loss as yields on 10-Year Treasury Note rose to near 8-month high. The Dow closed down 333.59 points or 0.77 percent at 42,992.21, well off the day's low of 42,761.56. The S&P 500, which dropped to 5,932.95, settled at 5,970.84 with a loss of 66.75 points or 1.11%, while the Nasdaq ended lower by 298.33 points or 1.49% at 19,722.03, recovering from a low of 19,533.40. However, the Dow posted a weekly gain of about 1.4 percent, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both moved up by more than 1.5 percent in the week. Tesla closed nearly 5 percent down, while Apple Inc., Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft Corporation, Amazon, Oracle Corporation, Netflix, Accenture, Morgan Stanley and Micron Technology lost 1 to 3 percent. On the economic front, data showed that U.S. retail inventories, excluding autos, increased by 0.6 percent month-over-month in November, following an upwardly revised 0.3 percent rise in the prior month, according to preliminary estimates. Meanwhile, wholesale inventories fell by 0.2 percent month-over-month to $902 billion in November after a revised 0.1 percent increase in the prior month, according to advance estimates. On a yearly basis, wholesale inventories increased by 0.9% in November.

Asia
The stock markets in East Asia and Australia were mostly down at the start of the week. However, traders point to the thin turnover shortly before the turn of the year. The Nikkei-225 fell by 1.0 percent, extending the losses from early trading. In contrast, the losses on the Chinese stock markets were more moderate.

Bonds
The renewed rise in U.S. bond yields had a dampening effect. The yield on ten-year bonds climbed to a multi-month high above the 4.60 per cent mark.

Analysis
CICC starts ABB with Outperform/Target CHF 56 – Trader
CICC starts Siemens with Outperform/Target 215 EUR
DZ Bank raises the FMC target to EUR 47 (41) – Hold

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