Swiss exports rose 1.5% in September, ABB's orders jumped 40% in the third quarter, and Roche is committing 510 million dollars to a Chinese group. Here are the week's 15 figures that matter for the Swiss economy, markets, crypto, startups and tech, drawn from 2clics.com articles published up to 21 October 2026.
Each figure is dated where the source allows and attributed to whoever published it. Where an amount is a target, an assumption or a disputed allegation, the table says so.
Swiss economy: foreign trade, prices and labour
| Figure | What it measures | Article |
|---|---|---|
| +1.5% | Rise in Swiss exports in September, to 23.2 billion francs, after August's slump, according to the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (FOCBS). Imports jumped by nearly a quarter, bringing the month's trade balance down to 1.35 billion francs. | Swiss exports in September |
| 2.45 francs | Average price of a litre of diesel recorded by the Touring Club Switzerland (TCS), up 2.1% in a week. It is now just one centime below its high for the year, 2.46 francs, reached in mid-September. | fuel prices in Switzerland |
| 20,000 | Breaches of the Labour Act that SRF Investigativ, the investigative unit of the German-language Swiss public broadcaster, attributes to Securitas between 2023 and 2025, involving some 900 employees. Investigation reported on 19 October 2026: Securitas acknowledges shortcomings in some cases but disputes this total. | breaches alleged against Securitas |
Companies and markets
| Figure | What it measures | Article |
|---|---|---|
| +40% | Rise in ABB's order intake in the third quarter, to 12.06 billion dollars, above the 11.85 billion expected by analysts. Net profit, however, fell 2% to 1.18 billion dollars. | ABB's quarterly results |
| 510 million dollars | Firm amount Roche will pay Hansoh Pharma for a portfolio of antibody-drug conjugates, according to the announcement of 19 October 2026. Up to 15 billion more may be added, but only if milestones are reached. A year earlier, Roche had paid 80 million dollars for a single molecule. | Roche and antibody-drug conjugates |
| +170% | Rise in Comet's orders in the third quarter of 2026, to 275.6 million francs, published on 20 October 2026. At Huber+Suhner, orders for the first nine months fell 0.8% year on year. | Comet and Huber+Suhner sales |
| 87.92% | Share of Polypeptide's capital held by Samsung Peptide following its public takeover offer. Completion of the acquisition, until now expected at the end of December, could slip into the first quarter of 2027. | Samsung's acquisition of Polypeptide |
Crypto
| Figure | What it measures | Article |
|---|---|---|
| +39.6% | Rise in total crypto market capitalisation between July and September 2026, to 2,960 billion dollars, according to the CoinGecko report published on 15 October 2026. Average daily spot volume nevertheless fell 8.6%. | CoinGecko's third-quarter report |
| 10% a year | Expected compound return on bitcoin over 10 to 15 years in J.P. Morgan Asset Management's long-term assumptions, published on 19 October 2026. This is an asset manager's assumption, with an assumed volatility of 55%, not a promise. | bitcoin's return according to JPMorgan |
| 4.3 billion dollars | Value of tokenised real-world assets on Solana according to Castle Labs, compared with around 700 million twelve months earlier. Ethereum remains far ahead, with 16.6 billion. | tokenisation on Solana |
Swiss startups
| Figure | What it measures | Article |
|---|---|---|
| 135 million dollars | Series D closed by Basel biotech Nouscom, announced on 19 October 2026, to fund a registrational trial of its NOUS-209 immunotherapy. The molecule is still in clinical development. | Nouscom's funding round |
| Less than 60 minutes | Time announced by bNovate, based at the EPFL Innovation Park in Lausanne, to detect targeted bacteria in water with BactoSense ID. A laboratory analysis delivers its result between 18 and 72 hours after sampling. | water quality with BactoSense |
Tech, artificial intelligence and fintech
| Figure | What it measures | Article |
|---|---|---|
| 6th | UBS's global ranking in the Evident AI Index 2026, which measures banks' maturity in artificial intelligence (AI). UBS is the only European bank in the top 10 and has fluctuated between fifth and seventh place since 2023. | UBS's AI maturity |
| 138 million | Transactions settled by AI agents using the x402 protocol on the Base blockchain in the third quarter of 2026, according to Chainalysis. A year earlier, the counter stood at 58,800. | x402 payments by AI agents |
| 0.29% | Annual fees of findependent's new pillar 3a offering, fund fees included, according to Fintechnews Switzerland on 19 October 2026. The company puts established digital providers at between 0.39% and 0.45%, a comparison it supplies itself. | findependent's third pillar |
What the week says about trends in the Swiss economy
Order books are filling up, but not everywhere. ABB owes its rise notably to data centres, where demand has more than doubled year on year according to the group. Comet is benefiting from the recovery in semiconductors. Huber+Suhner's orders, on the other hand, are edging down: these releases do not point to a broad-based recovery among Swiss industrial suppliers.
Foreign trade is recovering, cautiously. Exports picked up in September after August's slump, and the third-quarter trade surplus reached 14.0 billion francs. Costs are rising again too: diesel is close to its annual peak, made more expensive in particular by low water levels on the Rhine.
Swiss pharma is stepping up deals abroad. Roche is buying rights to molecules from a Chinese group, while Zug-based contract manufacturer Polypeptide is coming under the control of Samsung Biologics.
On the crypto side, prices rebounded faster than trading. CoinGecko's report shows rising capitalisation, falling spot volumes and more leveraged positions. JPMorgan's assumption and the tokenised assets on Solana describe institutional adoption, not a guaranteed return for investors.
Several of the week's figures remain targets, not observations. ABB is maintaining its annual guidance, findependent is aiming for 20,000 pillar 3a clients by the end of 2027, and the 15 billion in Roche's deal remain conditional. The broader economic context is covered in our article on growth in the Swiss economy.
