ZURICH/FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - A surprisingly weak quarterly report from the Swiss company ABB weighed on shares in the entire industry on Thursday. While ABB shares fell by 7 percent in Zurich, Schneider Electric lost almost 4 percent in Paris. Siemens was the worst hit on the German market, bringing up the rear on the DAX with a 3 percent drop.

The Swiss company was the first of the major European industrial groups to present quarterly figures. In their comments, analysts highlighted incoming orders and sales as weak points. High profitability and a positive ratio of orders to sales were seen as positive.

"We think that investors will react negatively to the results," predicted analyst Alasdair Leslie from investment house Bernstein before the start of trading on the stock exchange. This is because both orders and sales were two percent below consensus estimates.

According to Leslie, demand in the electrification business did not significantly exceed market expectations, which was a disappointment. At the same time, the robotics and automation segment clearly missed expectations. However, he also attributed the price losses to profit-taking.

ABB shares had outperformed the industrial goods sector by 15 percent over a three-month period. ABB had gained 37 percent since the beginning of the year. Schneider is up around 22 percent in 2024, Siemens only 2 percent./bek/ag/jha/