Filed under: Switzerland
Switzerland has the world’s most competitive economy, according to a survey of 125 countries by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF).
It is the first time that the Swiss have taken the top spot in the WEF’s annual Global Competitiveness Report, which was published on Tuesday.
“Switzerland’s top ranking reflects a combination of a world-class capacity for innovation and the presence of a highly sophisticated business culture,” said Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief economist of the WEF, in the report.
“The country has a well developed infrastructure for scientific research, with close collaboration between the leading research centres and industry.”
The report highlights the fact that Swiss companies also spend generously on research and development and that protection of intellectual property is strong, spurring high levels of technological innovation.
“Business activity in the country benefits from a well-developed institutional framework, characterised by respect for the rule of law, an efficiently working judicial system, and high levels of transparency and accountability within public institutions,” added Lopez-Claros.
“Flexible labour markets and excellent infrastructure facilities are two healthy features of the business environment.”
Switzerland scored consistently well in almost all nine categories, ranging from market efficiency through to innovation. The Swiss dropped out of the top six in only two of them: health and primary education (29th) and macroeconomy (18th).
US drop
The country’s total saw it climb from fourth place last year to the top spot, overtaking Finland and Sweden, and replacing the United States, which slipped into sixth place.
The annual rankings are drawn from a combination of publicly available data and the results of an annual survey conducted by the WEF together with partner research institutes and business organisations. This year, over 11,000 business leaders were polled in a record 125 economies worldwide.
Reacting to the WEF report, the Swiss Business Federation, economiesuisse, warned that Switzerland should not “rest on its laurels”.
“One should not read too much into this ranking. It is one of a number of ‘beauty contests’ organised by different institutions, and two months ago the Swiss only made it into eighth place in a similar ranking published by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation,” said chief economist Rudolf Walser.
He added that these rankings only offered a snapshot of the economic situation and the most important thing was to stay at the top of the pile.
He said Switzerland needed to continue with its policy of reform to reduce federal budget deficits.
Filed under: General News
CHICAGO — UBS Global Asset Management announced today that it has launched the UBS U.S. Equity Alpha Fund, a core equity holding that seeks to generate alpha — or the excess return over the benchmark — by investing in both long and short positions.
UBS Global Asset Management launched a similar strategy in the institutional market in September 2005; as of June 30, 2006, the group managed $411 million in assets in that strategy.
The UBS U.S. Equity Alpha Fund seeks to outperform the Russell 1000 Index by 250–500 basis points per year (gross of fees) over a full market cycle, with a similar level of market risk as the index. UBS Global Asset Management does not represent or guarantee that the fund will meet this return goal.*
The UBS U.S. Equity Alpha Fund attempts to generate alpha in three ways:
Taking long positions in securities deemed underpriced.
Taking short positions in securities deemed overpriced.
Making pair trades. A pair trade takes a long position in a somewhat undervalued security and a short position in a somewhat overvalued security that are correlated.
“The UBS U.S. Equity Alpha Fund is not a hedge fund, but a core equity strategy that fully employs UBS Global Asset Management’s 25-year, fundamental, price-to-intrinsic-value philosophy,” said John Leonard, Head of North American Equities at UBS Global Asset Management (Americas) and leader of the Fund’s investment management team.
“Although we have not traditionally employed short selling in our strategies, our investment process has proven successful at identifying both over- and underpriced securities. In long-only portfolios, we can capitalize only on a portion of our research convictions: the underpriced securities. By relaxing the long-only constraint, UBS U.S. Equity Alpha Fund has the flexibility to capitalize on all the mispriced securities our research identifies,” Leonard added. “This added capability offers retail investors the potential for returns that are higher than those offered by traditional long-only funds and the benchmark. Markets go in cycles, with growth outperforming value for a time and then value outpacing growth. UBS U.S. Equity Alpha Fund seeks to add value throughout a full market cycle, regardless of which style is in favor.”
UBS is one of the world’s leading financial firms, serving a discerning global client base. As an organization, it combines financial strength with an international culture that embraces change. As an integrated firm, UBS creates added value for clients by drawing on the combined resources and expertise of all of its businesses.
UBS is the world’s largest wealth manager, a top-tier investment banking and securities firm, and one of the largest global asset managers. In Switzerland, UBS is the market leader in retail and commercial banking.
UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in 50 countries, with about 39% of its employees working in the Americas, 37% in Switzerland, 16% in the rest of Europe and 8% in Asia Pacific. UBS’s financial businesses employ around 72,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SWX Swiss Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE).
* Risk is measured by standard deviation. A market cycle is typically four to seven years.
Disclaimer
There are certain risks that may impede the achievement of the Fund’s goal, which include, but are not limited to, derivative risk, leverage risk and short selling risk. It is possible that the Fund’s securities held long will decline in value at the same time that the value of the securities sold short increases, thereby increasing the potential for loss. The Fund expects to have 100% exposure to the US equity markets, so when the markets experience negative returns, the Fund may experience negative returns.
