Credit Suisse

It should surprise no one that one of the best performing investment strategies over the past 15 years has been to play defense, specifically by buying high-dividend paying stocks in sectors like consumer staples, health care, and utilities. Not only have those stocks proven less volatile than the broader market, they have drawn increasing investor interest as interest rates have remained stubbornly low. But as rates look set to increase at least in some parts of the world, Marc Häfliger,...

The Swiss franc, like gold and U.S. Treasuries, is an asset investors turn to when they need a safe place to hunker down. But what about Swiss equities? While they’re no safe haven themselves, they can, like those of any other country, occasionally trade at levels that promise outsize returns. This is one of those times: Credit Suisse’s Private Banking & Wealth Management (PBWM) division thinks Swiss equities – particularly small- and mid-cap stocks – offer greater potential than global...

At the Credit Suisse multimedia production days with brand ambassador Roger Federer the program is always tightly packed and minutely timed. A multitude of different photo and video sessions with the tennis star have to be shot in just a few hours. And it was no different at this production day in Zurich in the early summer of 2015. But Roger Federer would not be Roger Federer, if he could not master even this unusual challenge in his usual professional manner. A look behind the scenes....

In the aftermath of the housing collapse, U.S. consumers did something they hadn’t done in years: they drastically reduced their debt loads. After peaking in 2008 at just over $11.5 trillion, household debt (the sum of mortgages, home equity lines of credit, auto loans, and credit card debt) was whittled down to under $10 trillion by the second quarter of 2013. But that, apparently, is when the deleveraging stopped. Over the past two years, household debt has once again been on the rise. But...

A very personal film has revealed new insights into the extraordinary life of motorsport icon Sir Stirling Moss. The 85-year-old race ace, who dominated the international scene in the 1950s and early-60s, chats candidly ahead of the 18th running of the Goodwood Revival at the circuit where he achieved so much success in his 15-year professional career. For more information about the Credit Suisse Classic Car Program please visit www.credit-suisse.com/classiccars Check out our Sponsorship...

A selloff as violent as the one global equities markets experienced this past Monday can have effects that mirror a real-life earthquake. Once the earth stops moving, shell-shocked investors have to figure out what caused all the shaking and whether aftershocks are coming. They also have to determine whether anything valuable is hiding in the debris.   To the first point, it’s quite clear that trouble in China was the catalyst for the rout. It all started on Friday, August 21, when...

As the second-quarter earnings season draws to a close in the United States, with 89 percent of companies in the S&P 500 having announced quarterly results, there’s both good and bad news to report. Sugar first: Seventy-four percent of companies beat consensus estimates, slightly better than the 10-year average of 70 percent. The outlook for the future is getting rosier, too. The consensus forecast for 12-month forward earnings growth is now 7.2 percent, up from 5.2 percent at the...

It’s not an easy time to be a fixed-income investor, particularly for those seeking opportunities in the United States. The Federal Reserve’s stated intention to raise benchmark interest rates this year for the first time since 2006 hangs over the U.S. fixed-income market like a pall, threatening to drive bond prices down, introduce volatility, and even create a liquidity crunch. Investors who want (or need) to maintain exposure to fixed income through the rate hike might try looking across...

For the three months leading into August, the Chinese government had kept the yuan-dollar exchange rate fixed in a tight range around 6.115 yuan to the dollar. Yet the yuan’s spot price consistently traded about 1.4 percent weaker than the fix. Investors, in other words, sensed a devaluation coming. In mid-August, Chinese officials proved them right by intervening in currency markets for three days in a row, prompting a 3 percent drop in the value of the yuan.   An 8 percent decline in...

Credit Suisse employees in the UK have raised over £300,000 for their 2015 Charity of the Year partner FareShare, helping to provide more than 1.2 million meals to organisations such as children’s breakfast clubs, centres for victims of domestic abuse, lunch clubs for the elderly and youth empowerment projects. For more information on Fareshare visit: http://www.fareshare.org.uk/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out our...