Talk Back

By Annie Gasparro 
    A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–The steady, if sometimes exaggerated, trend of wirehouse advisers shifting to independent brokerages is proving to be more than just a passing fad.

The independent channel took in about 90 advisers from the four major wirehouses last month, while those wirehouses only hired 25 brokers from independents, according to research firm Discovery’s report on registered representative movement for January.

The four wirehouses are Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Bank of America Corp.’s (BAC) Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Advisors, and UBS Wealth Management U.S. Their biggest indie competitors lately: LPL Financial Corp., Ameriprise Financial Services and Raymond James Financial Services. Continue reading…

A Dow Jones Newswires column by Simon Constable stated:  

  The next nasty round in protectionism has now officially arrived.

   It’s what Standard Chartered is calling “the great devaluation race.”

   First off the starting blocks seems to be the Swiss National Bank, with its proclamation last week that it would cap any rise in the value of the Swiss franc.

   The SNB announcement came together with a decision to slash interest rates to 0.25% from 0.5%. It was a move that seemed merely to confirm what many already believed: The Swiss have been in the process of competitively devaluing their currency for a while.

   In January, one Swiss franc would buy about 94 cents, compared with about 84 cents more recently.

   The Swiss have spun the line that last week’s move was to “cushion the effects of the economic and financial crisis,” according to a statement by the SNB.

Continue reading…

  LONDON (Dow Jones)–U.K. chancellor Alistair Darling Sunday called for Switzerland to undertake fundamental reform of its banking and tax laws to bring it into line with the rest of Europe.

  In an interview with the Observer, Darling said Swiss banks’ refusal to end centuries of secrecy is “intolerable.” 

  Darling’s criticism comes as UBS AG (UBS), the world’s biggest wealth manager, is accused by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service of using coded language in internal emails and memos, creating hundreds of offshore entities and concealing the overseas accounts of wealthy U.S. citizens.

  In a settlement Wednesday, UBS agreed to hand over to the U.S. Justice Department the names and account information for a group of clients, said by Swiss authorities to number between 250 to 300, to avoid prosecution.

  Under the deal, UBS also agreed to pay $780 million in fines.

  Newspaper Web site: www.guardian.co.uk