Novartis shares were down on the Zurich Stock Exchange on Friday, following a downgrade by analysts at Stifel from 'buy' to 'hold'.

At around 3.30pm, the Swiss laboratory's shares were down 0.9%, which nevertheless enabled them to outperform the SMI index of leading Swiss stocks, down 2.4%.

In a study, Stifel's teams look back at the pharmaceutical sector's 'lacklustre' results season, which led to profit-taking on Novartis in particular.

Judging that the Basel-based group's momentum is currently slowing down, the research department believes that now is the right time to take a break on the stock, leading it to lower its recommendation.

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