Who ever would have guessed? This ought to help boost confidence in the markets. Anyone who says they know how much bad business is still out there to be written down is a liar. Elite Swiss bank UBS is of course Phil Gramm's employer. Gramm helped pave the way for this risky business behavior while while in the Senate and then accepted a plum $1 million/year job with the previously high flying bank. Gramm is also McCain's economic brain and likely choice to run the Treasury Department where Henry Paulson now works. Can you imagine?
"The bad news is that the banking crisis is not over and that there are still lots of bad credits around," Claude Zehnder, head of research for technical trading at Zuercher Kantonalbank, said.
"Also, the possibility has arisen this weekend of further writedowns," he added.
UBS announced last month writedowns had climbed a further $5 billion in the second quarter to top $42 billion, and said it was splitting the investment bank that had dragged it into the red from its core wealth management business.
