Swiss shares up before bourse halted by snag 11:28 a.m. Sep 20, 1999 Eastern

ZURICH, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Trade on the Swiss Stock Exchange SWX came to an abrupt halt on Monday after technical problems caused a partial breakdown of the system.

SWX-Spokesman Leo Hug said a number of so-called Access Points had broken down.

Although some of these points could work again the SWX decided to stop trading because it wanted to treat all its members on an equal footing, he added.

The Swiss exchange is a purely electronic system and there is no floor trading.

Trade should resume as usual on Tuesday.

The Swiss SMI blue chip index stood up 0.65 percent at 7,072.3 points at 1115 GMT amid market talk the U.S. Federal Reserve will not raise key interest rates at the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting, dealers said.

The SPI broad market index was up 0.65 percent at 4,666.49. points.

Financials profited from the receeding fears that U.S. rates would head higher again soon, with CS Group and Zurich Financial

rising between one and two percent.

The next FOMC meeting is due on October 5.

Novartis gained 26 francs at 2,227 ahead of Tuesday's ``R&D Day'' in New York, where the drug company will inform analysts and investors about the state of its research and product development activities.

Nestle rose 56 francs to 2,996 with dealers citing a newpaper report that Philip Morris intends to sell parts of confectionary group Jakobs Suchard and that Nestle might be interested. Nestle has first half results next week.

Among firmer cyclicals, Ciba, Clariant and Ems were in the spotlights after Ems Chief Executive Christoph Blocher said on Friday in a Swiss television interview that he was interested in some of the businesses of Ciba and Clariant.

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