Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, is expected to announce the biggest loss in the country's history when it releases Tuesday its results for 2008, a year that saw the national icon tarnished by the subprime crisis.
But if there is a silver lining for the bank, which has been the target of a huge state rescue package, it lies in the fact that analysts say UBS has now hit bottom after its stock price fell 82 percent since the summer of 2007.
For that reason, the loss of nearly 20 billion Swiss francs (13.3 billion euros, 17.2 billion dollars) the bank is expected to announce for 2008 on Tuesday should not surprise markets, analysts say.
Its annual net loss is believed to be between 14.1 and 19.4 billion Swiss francs, according to estimates from Swiss financial news agency AWP. The loss for the fourth quarter alone is expected to be between 5.9 billion and 7.5 billion Swiss francs for the bank, which has already written down about 46.9 billion dollars' worth of assets.
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