UBS Investment Bank Will Be Profitable- Eventually....Most Likely

Much like the Cubs, the UBS Investment Bank's rallying cry seems to be 'wait til next year' in terms of when the unit will bring home a profitable quarter. As virtually every other major IB was making money hand over fist in FICC trading last quarter, UBS focused its attention on charging up the league table in lawsuits. The (current) CEO Oswald Gruebel recently highlighted just how bad things have become.

"We had virtually nothing, no revenues from credit trading, which was the biggest performer in the last quarter."

But the news isn't all terrible. Based on CFO John Cryan's comments regarding when profitability will return, the concept of the why firms hedge may have finally made its way to the Swiss bank.

"I was asked this by the board, and I likened it to predicting the weather in the U.K.," he said. "You can predict it for about the next half an hour, but you can't predict it for much longer than that."

If Jefferies is done plundering, and the IB can go more than 3 weeks without having to pay up for new senior management hires, they might be able to drop the second derivative loss rhetoric and reacquaint themselves with a color other than red.