The End of Swiss Banking Secrecy ?
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The Swiss government proposed bill to allow banks to share clients data with the U.S. received a setback with the parliamentary committee rejection of the draft.
Today's vote by the upper house will probably decide the future of Swiss banking secrecy. Both bankers and Cantonal financial directors are supporting the agreement as a rejection could lead to criminal indictments for some Swiss banks with obviously a very bad impact to business.

With very limited information available it is however clear that one of the historical competitive advantages of Swiss banks is going to be impacted. The main issue is if the acceptance of some unilateral conditions will set an important precedence that might lead to the end of Swiss banking secrecy.

In my view several Swiss major banks have already adapted their business model by leveraging their competitiveness on security and stability and by refocusing on high growth area like Asia but with a very fierce competition the loss of secrecy might have a negative impact to business.

A recent drop on several Swiss banks might still be a buying opportunity, especially for these banks that have already successfully changed their business model.

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European Austerity doesn't work
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Disappointing PMI data from Germany confirms that the European slowdown continues and not just in southern Europe.
Austerity combined with limited access to credit by SME will only result in prolonged no-growth and higher unemployment. The continuous jobs reduction from European businesses (now at the 16th consecutive month) will likely push the 12% unemployment rate higher.

Central to the problem is also the financing disparity of European SMEs (that accounts for 98% of euro-zone companies
and 75% of employment). On a five year loan German and French SME will pay 3.5% vs. 6% in Spain or Italy (GS data). This cannot be easily solved by the ECB.

Europe needs a set of pro-growth policy that will ensure that cheap money is not just available to banks but is properly transmitted to SME. Austerity will not simply kill growth and make many of the European countries uncompetitive.

Gold will rise again
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I view the recent drop in Gold as a buying opportunity especially for these portfolios that have little or no gold component. Physical gold sales (e.g. Golden Eagle coins sales surged eight fold vs. the same month last year) are seeing increased demand while "paper gold" in the form of futures a...

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Switzerland says Ja and limits "fat cat" salaries
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see also the

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