UBS Life Themes

The financial crisis of 2008 reminds us of an essential truth: The history of markets is full of events that resisted prediction and rational analysis. Tulip mania in 17th century Holland comes to mind as just one example. If the crisis teaches us that we ignore history at our peril, it also should compel us to develop investment practices that will help us, as individual investors, weather the financial storms that the future surely holds. However, market volatility is not the only risk we face.

The crisis is likely to exacerbate several existing trends, including the shift in responsibility for financial security from government to individuals as politicians look to trim costs. In a changing environment, a consistent and disciplined approach to investing becomes more important. Ensuring a basic level of financial security at every stage of our lives is also an important lesson of the crisis. This entails establishing personally comfortable ways of investing and better means of identifying and managing a full range of risks.

Helping you do this is the task we set ourselves in this UBS Life Themes series. We hope to offer you guidance on how to make optimal financial choices for today and tomorrow, with full recognition that investors are different. In the aftermath of the crisis, we think a clean-sheet-of-paper approach is essential. And we favor applying generous amounts of common sense to the task of forging a personal investment approach, one that is disciplined and takes into account both the uncertainties of markets as well as your unique financial goals and concerns.

The series will be published in four installments. The complete series will be available on 23 September.

To get a copy of the UBS Life Themes, please speak to your UBS client advisor.