Swiss banking monolith UBS announced its first-ever yearly net loss

It’ll close the books on 2007 down $4 billion.

Including today’s announcement of over $13 billion fourth-quarter mortgage-related write-downs, UBS racked up over $18 billion in such losses in 2007. Only Citigroup, with $21 billion, and Merrill Lynch, at $19 billion, can claim larger annual losses.

Spokespeople for UBS guessed 2008 would be “another difficult year.” We think they could be right…


But not if Hank Paulson and George W. Bush have anything to say about it: “After years of unsustainable home price appreciation, our economy is undergoing a significant and necessary housing correction,” Hank Paulson told Congress.

“The housing correction, high energy prices, and capital market turmoil are weighing on current economic growth,” he said. “I believe that our economy will continue to grow, although its pace in coming quarters will be slower than what we have seen in recent years.

“While we are in a difficult transition period as markets reassess and reprice risk, I have confidence in our markets. They have recovered from stressful periods in the past, and they will do so again.”