+1

Marton

Hi everyone... always nice to read these threads, much better than television. To answer the original question, if you have more than 30 k and you really do not want to loose you money chose one of the cantonal banks for your retail banking.

All the cantonal banks except 3 or 4 is guaranteed by the government for your the entire amount you may have there in cash.

But as also stated above, many believe that UBS is to big to fail, meaning that the government will cover their ass.

So keep it short choose ZKB or another player, at least for your cash and retail banking.

Wow, usually I feel pretty lousy about having a total sum of 50 CHF in my UBS account...today I suddenly feel good about it

Hi everyone. Remember not all cantonal banks are backed by the officials anymore, some of them already where in so deep problems that they are not covered. But that was not in this run. As far as I remember 3-4 are not covered. So you need to ask or do a bit of homework.

Not my experience.... (not contesting the AAA rating BTW)
The staid kantonalbanken back starting from Y2k onwards felt the push to move towards a more pre-active risk taking stance, instead of just "providing jobs" to those old-school paper pushers.

We will eventually know what kind of poison they took on the books, be it a hedge fund or a CDO or structured products or whatever.
Maybe their products were insured through AIG, who knows?

It's a crazy and dangerous world out there

Paul

Oh my god Dino you called it. Now you can start your own cult of eager hopefuls with upturned faces hoping to catch further glimmers of your awesome prophecies.
good call.

Oh really. Sadly practice has shown otherwise.

Yeah, I can see how in a bank run that would actually work.

Maybe you can remind me what Geneva's cantonal bank was before the canton had to wipe out 1.3 billion of losses (with my taxes). I believe AIG had quite a high rating as well until today.

You do know that the cantonal banks have large holdings in structured products with, for instance, Lehman credit risk? Bernese cantonal bank - 50 million Lehman risk (compare that to UBS' 300 million, and see whether the proportion assets / risks is constant....), Zurcher KB - you're a shareholder, so about time to inquire about it I'd say

Travel Giant XL collapses

I don't think that UBS sponsor a Premier League team do they? If not, you should be OK based on this! If they do, watch out.

Probably as reliable as some of the other advice

Rod

Fed bails out AIG. Seems you can be too big to fail afterall. Lehman was big, but clearly not big enough!

But the US government has deep pockets. If UBS were ever to find itself itself in the same situation, the issue wouldn't so much be too big to fail but would it be too big to save? If the government wouldn't or couldn't stump up the necessary, relying on outside help from foreigners is risky- they might just figure out it's better to let a failing business go bust then cherry pick the parts they want at fire sale prices from the liquidators and leave the toxic stuff behind, as Barclays have done with Lehman.

Hi

Please find below the link to swisscanto where you can see the details about which bank is backed up by the state guarantee.

http://www.kantonalbank.ch/e/gruppe/...sgarantie.php?

Nothing is certain these days! The ZKB and other AAA rated cantonal banks are relatively the safest. At least the taxpayers enjoy(ed) the profits.

The US model appears to be: Profits for the capitalists and losses for the state! That defrauds the taxpayers.

Hence, I am convinced that ZKB (also any other AAA rated Swiss cantonal banks) and the Swiss Government's PostFinance are the only safe(r) choices.

So how do you answer the question about "where do you recommend that people keep their money?"

Marton

As UBS is funding John McCains campaign I think a lot depends on whether the US people vote him in as president

Anyone care to take an educated or not guess at UBS third qtr profits/losses? maybe we could start a book all proceeds to charity of course.

I would guess at another 5 Billion write off & hence 2B loss.

Marton

No bank is particularly safe at the minute. Not just UBS. I'd say anything could happen to anyone of them. I'd be scared to move my money to another bank incase the bank I moved it to went down.

Maybe time to start seeing who's coming out of banks with large bags.... and follow them....

Or watch the likes of Soros and Buffett, they did not get where they have got to being as pig stupid as all these so-called investment gurus that are responsible for this whole mess.

Huh? Do elaborate please.
link perhaps.

thanks
3day

I saw some analysis reported on Bloomberg (admittedly by a brokerage I had never heard of) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a0gRPpaO01Lo that the European banks most exposed to a collapse by Lehman in descending order are, um, UBS, then Deutsche Bank and then Credit Suisse.

I was just about to put the sales proceeds of my UK house in UBS (I certainly wasn't going to give it to my current bank BCV, who are useless and not canton-backed) but now I don't know what to do.

I hope that analysis is wrong. If it is right, then it does not surprise me that UBS is up there ready to lose more money hand over fist. They are the most successful bank so far in this whole mess by a long way when considering write-off and losses.