YEREVAN, January 16. /ARKA/. The Swiss stock exchange ended Thursday's session with a heavy loss after the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly decided to discontinue its currency ceiling, Vestifinance.ru reports.

The announcement sparked a very turbulent trading session, with an 80 percent increase in the volatility index. The Swiss Market Index declined by 8.67 percent Thursday and finished at 8,400.61.

Swatch, the world’s biggest maker of Swiss watches, dropped 17 percent as of 3:37 p.m. in Zurich, on track for the biggest decline in more than two decades, Bloomberg reports. Holcim Ltd. (HOLN), the world’s biggest cement maker, slid 13 percent. Nestle SA (NESN), the world’s largest food company, which gets about 98 percent of its revenue from outside Switzerland, declined as much as 11 percent, the biggest intraday drop in more than 17 years.

"Words fail me! Jordan is not only the name of the SNB president, but also of a river and today's SNB action is a tsunami; for the export industry and for tourism, and finally for the entire country," Swatch Chief Executive Officer Nick Hayek was quoted by Reuters as saying in his email statement on Thursday.

It is worth to be added that this has stricken hard not only at private companies, but also at the Swiss National Bank has been stricken. --0--