B. Obama....?

Well he is the chosen one!

Worth a laugh, but not exactly accurate. In 2004 their share price was around CHF 30 and in 2008 less than half. Closed yesterday around CHF 12 - and I would still sell.

Looks like UBS's Christmas tree is going to be a little more lop-sided - their shares are nearly 10% down on the morning and under CHF12.00 XX sorry under CHF11.00...

Do I hear 10? 10? Anyone? (not sure which smiley fits)

you can hear 10.73 ....

A biologist asking a stupid question : if the share price goes down and down ... how does this impact the near future of UBS. Will they need more financial support from the government, can they go bankrupt?

It's not just UBS - I quoted them as they have been the topic here.

All financial shares are down dramatically. But think of it in percentages. You can keep dropping 10% a day almost forever, but dropping CHF1.00 a day gives them 11 days...

Swiss National Bank reduced its 3- month LIBOR target band TODAY by 1 point on top of the recent half point reduction I mentioned.



p.s Libor rate is now 1.96; lucky my mortgage comes up for renewal soon & not 2/3 months ago.

Marton

That's a helluva cut - sign of real distress / trouble.
Mortgage owners might be happy, but if the economy goes down the crapper so do real estate values. Negative equity, anyone?



Paul

What <<trouble>> ??

That is OK for me, I never view the place I live in as an investment. What good is such an investment when the only way I can realise the profit is to live in a cardboard box under a bridge.....

Mostly in Switzerland real estate values did not rise much in the last few years so they should not fall much either - excluding some special cases like certain ski areas and some parts of the larger cities.

It is !! & worse it was not forecast so soon & so high by the people who forecast such things; some did say another 0.5% in December maybe.

Marton

I think that a part of the problem might be if the stocks have been used as collateral for loans (to buy more stocks) and as the stocks gets lower there is a increasing possibility of the lenders requiring more collateral to cover the debt or that such loans being called in, which means the stock has to be sold no matter what, which lowers the price and this causes a chain reaction... This has probably been happening for some time now..

I belive many investors have well defined exit limits to minimize their cognative biases...
Another possibility might thus be that a nice number like 10 could be a popular threshold for an automatic sell.... so if the price fluctuates below 10, things could escalate...

but then again... Im no expert, just postulating.

They basically see the economic activity - domestically and internationally - slamming to zero.
The lower band of SNB's "target" LIBOR rate was 2.25% until oct. 7th - now it is 0.5%.
It is not the numeric value which is cause of concern - it is the rapidity with which the target rate was lowered.
It's like slamming a car in the wall, so to speak.
And let's just pray that lower interest rates WILL find their way into the pockets of the ordinary folks, or else....

P.

At which stage, presumably, the fat lady sings

sounds more like crying

Marton

The spectre of deflation.

This means;
Everything thay you buy falls in value; houses, shares, stamps, diamonds, &&&.
Then people stop buying & everything slowly grinds to a halt.

Marton

Perhaps because American's are liquidising their assets and buying American dollars.

To get rid of Asian assets.

Google "Asian economy" and see for yourself.

I was in Singapore and KL recently and the local papers talked about investment being pulled out.

Australia is being hit now because Asia is it's biggest export market.