“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”
― Cree Indian Prophecy
Or for that matter, gold!
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Store it in booze. You get more percent, first alcohol, then money.
In my youth I had to organize the financials of a bar we did open during the festivities of my wife’s village in Spain. The retired owner of a bar sold us the booze for supermarket price minus 10%. His attic was full of booze cartons, some of it more that 30 years old. There still were some price tags for literally 3 cents a bottle.
The owner said he never trusted banks, but he trusts the state to make booze more expensive and he trusts the people to drink more. So he invested all his life savings there. And made more than in the stock market… and could drink nice 30-year old booze.
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UBS is getting lean. Other companies are cutting too. Unemployment numbers showed some relief in Feb 2026 when open positions increased, but current incertitude will probably kill this.
From Swiss work stats, unemployment stopped increasing in February but the rising trend from last year is still there.
There’s some criticism that people in RAV is not a good statistic. No prob, the unemployment as defined by International Labor Office (ILO) is getting close to COVID times. The last data point is Q42025, no issues with energy prices yet here. Even the Q12026 data point won’t catch the rising energy costs yet.
So, buckle up. This will get interesting. We’ll see who’s up to the high seas and who’s a Zuri lake captain.
Back to my favorite populist media…pride comes before a fall. Tertiary sector companies are cutting employees now because it’s easier. These business adapt faster to changes. But no one’s immune to a slow down. Once the order backlog dries up, specialty carpenters will start wondering what happened.
UBS died like 25 years ago when they buried the best brand ever, PaineWebber, “No Paine, no gain!”. The complete U.S. investments did not pay a single Cent. To UBS that is, the old management retired as billionaires.
Lucky there are some Eastern investors/States which always throw a lifebuoy whenever UBS fucks up too much. Like right now, being the most expensive Swiss bank and taking in the second most expensive Swiss bank with a lot of uncovered skeletons in the closet.
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A UBS fuckup? WHAT?
Are you referring to the Union Bank of Singapore?
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And as usual, the recovery will direct more wealth to the richer and away from the poor.
The greatest menaces don’t get anyone’s attention until something blows up.
Private equity firm from Zug under increasing pressure. The balance sheet is allegedly OK but investor confidence is not doing great. The restriction to take money out the fund reveals a liquidity issue that will motivate more people to take money out of the fund, which will force managers to take more drastic measures, which will further erode investor confidence…
Not long along something similar happened to a bank with Suisse in the name, where nothing was intrinsically wrong, but trust in the bank eroded, some people took their money out and the bank could not survive.
Partners Caps Evergreen Fund Redemptions as Requests Rise Bloomberg article via Swissinfo.
The Swiss firm, one of Europe’s largest listed alternative asset managers, said its $8.6 billion Global Value SICAV fund was limiting redemptions to 5% of net asset value per quarter after withdrawal requests surged to an estimated 9.8% in the second quarter, according to a letter to investors seen by Bloomberg News.
Shares of the asset manager, which oversees about $185 billion across private equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure and royalties, tumbled as much as 18.2% in Zurich trading on Wednesday, the biggest intraday loss on record. They are down about 30% for the year.
The Swiss firm is one of the pioneers of evergreen funds, which operate indefinitely and typically allow investors to withdraw at least a portion of their investments quarter-by-quarter rather than locking up the capital for a set period. It has more than 30 such funds across five asset classes with more than $56 billion combined AUM, the spokesperson said.
“There are some idiosyncratic factors for this fund in particular, but indeed you do see investors broadly, after having redemption pressure within private credit for a number of quarters, now starting to redeem other asset classes,” Chief Executive Officer David Layton told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. Most of the redemptions in the Global Value fund are coming from Asia and Australia, he said.
So, how’s Switzerland doing?
(smiling nervously) it seems the Euro Central Bank will announce an interest rate next Thursday June 11th because inflation goes in Euro zone was 3.2% YoY last May, with a target of 2%.
https://global.morningstar.com/en-gb/economy/ecb-rate-decision-what-expect-june-11
The history of the EUR/CHF rate since 20+ years ago. If interests go up in the Euro zone, and not here, CHF keeps rising.
Ahhh, I basically sell myself (working hours) in 50% EUR, 25% USD, 25% CHF. As long as sales stay steady and keep the job…Paris and Milano will be cheap 
Wondering what the Swiss Central Bank would do if the CHF keeps rising. A lot of SMEs that export to the Euro Zone are already under pressure.
Surely if rates go up in eurozone and not here, then EUR will appreciate relative to CHF, not the other way around?
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Duh! It’s a rather slow Monday…you’re right
My biggest concern is that 2026 may become the year of environmental armageddon.
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China has started to reduce consumption of oil at an absolutely massive scale - so much so that even with a 10-20% reduction in availability due to the Strait of Hormuz “situation”, the oil price hasn’t moved too much.
However, strategic reserves are nearing “tank-bottom” and that is when we’ll see the true impact of that.
China has been weening itself off oil for some time - the rest of the world is going cold-turkey on oil.
Yet burns even more coal than the USA
Armageddon off!
You wish!
It’s maybe postponed.
It will take months to fill the various SPRs around the world - if they’re being filled at all.
Trump inherited them somewhat drained but wasted time with cheap fuel not to re-fill them.
I’d be honestly surprised if he puts more than the bare minimum into it.
He himself admitted it (he’s at least honest): the world was 4 weeks away from running out of fuel and that would have been a total “bedlam”.
AFAIK, Brent futures never exceeded a certain level for Autumn, because the truth was that the Straight was going to re-open one way or the other. The alternative would have been nothing short of a government-ending event for most of the Western hemisphere.
Once again the world can breathe a sigh of relief at another TACO.
Effectively, DJT capitulated to Iran, used Vance to get there, is now claiming victory while using Vance as the escape goat if things fall apart.
I call that Unconditional Surrender, may be?
The Strait opens and closes on a daily basis using Lebanon as an excuse.
I believe Iran will go slow on mine clearing until the 60 days toll free period is over and then fully reopen it with “protection” charges.
So far the best day since the agreement was announced has had seven ships pass through, before the war, about 120 vessels a day had passed through the strait, according to leading shipping journal Lloyd’s List.
Lots of people are pointing at the lower oil prices but these are for August deliveries and these lower prices are anyway up to a third more than pre-war.
If not Armaggedon but world wide recession is not yet off the table.
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