The Swiss National Bank (SNB) said Tuesday that it turned a loss in the previous quarter to strong profits for the first half of the year, due mainly to the foreign currency market.

At the end of June, the Swiss central bank said it recorded a profit of 5.11 billion Swiss francs (5.16 billion U.S. dollars) before allocation to currency reserves.

That compared with 1.22 billion Swiss francs profit in the same period the year before, said the central bank in a statement.

The interim half-yearly results marked a rebound from the first quarter of this year in which the SNB posted losses of 6.8 billion Swiss francs.

"The profit on foreign currency positions amounted to 5.2 billion Swiss francs (5.26 billion U.S. dollars)," said the bank.

The SNB noted that its financial results depend largely on developments in the gold, foreign exchange and capital markets.

A valuation loss of 900 million Swiss francs was registered on gold holdings, which remained unchanged in volume terms but declined due to fluctuations in the market price of the metal.

In 2017, the SNB recorded a record profit of 54 billion Swiss francs. (1 Swiss franc=1.01 U.S. dollar) Enditem