China. What gives?

The Shanghai stock exchange is down almost 15% this year, shortly after much-touted measures of opening-up to foreign investors.  The Chinese yuan has depreciated. Trade tensions following the announcement of tariffs by the Trump administration continue to escalate.  These developments have taken a toll on other emerging markets, making emerging market equities one of the worst performing asset classes this year. 

1Q18 earnings season wrap-up

As the Q1 earnings season draws to a close, investors were left with a mixed picture. While the S&P 500 earnings per share (EPS) growth was on average 25% with over three quarters of the companies beating analysts’ estimate, the index edged up only 50bps since the start of the season on April 13th.

The reasons behind this inconsistency are multi-fold:

Cecilia Santana

Starting in 2001, Cecilia worked for UBS/BTG Pactual Wealth Management for 9 years where she spend the majority of the time as Daily Banker providing support to team officers and managing onshore and offshore clients and prospects. In 2010 she left BTG Pactual and jointed GPS Portfolio Strategists, a Multi-Family Office in Sao Paulo where she served the first 2 years as a Controller for clients with total assets above BRL 150mm and for the third and last year as a Wealth Management Officer.

Maria Elena Vergara

Maria Elena began her career at Generale Bank in Brussels in 1987 as a credit analyst. Over the next decade, Maria Elena worked in Spain and Colombia, where she advanced into roles spanning the areas of International Lending, International Treasury, Correspondent Banking and Corporate Banking.

Alejandro Oberli

Alejandro has over 30 years of industry experience in the areas of foreign exchange, investment banking, derivatives products and wealth management across several leading financial institutions. He began his career in forex at UBS before moving on to debt capital origination with Credit Suisse, focusing on American, Canadian and Japanese corporate and sovereign issuers. In 1991, Alejandro became a member of the notable equity derivatives team at Goldman Sachs, and in 2003 Alejandro joined the UBS International Wealth Management group.

Marcus R. Epprecht

Marcus started his career at Swiss Bank Corporation, predecessor to today’s UBS AG, in 1985. His global career included positions as a Private Wealth Manager, Representative in Brazil and a Manager of Brazil Teams based in New York and Miami. Over the past two decades, Marcus has developed a broad network within the Latin American financial industry and an array of others through longstanding client relationships and work with various target companies and individuals.

Sebastian Derungs

Sebastian began his career as a fiduciary, providing tax and accounting services for wealthy individuals and small to mid-sized companies. He later worked for UBS Card Centre, where he was in charge of consolidation, regulatory financial reporting and optimization of accounting processes. Before joining Parkview in 2012, Sebastian was the commercial manager of a retail chain in Switzerland, where he was responsible for marketing, communication, financial accounting and controlling.

Rising volatility is the new normal

It is not often that signs of economic strength trigger a market sell-off. Slightly higher than expected wage growth was perceived as presaging significant inflationary pressures, leading to a market correction. Volatility accelerated faster than during the Lehman collapse. Our inboxes were inundated with emails proclaiming various shades of “buy the dip” from banks.

Martin Liechti

Martin is a veteran of the wealth management industry, with over 30 years of experience as an advisor and leader. During his career at UBS, Martin advanced from a client advising function to General Manger, leading a team of 1600 bankers throughout the Americas.