news conference berne, 13 december 2018 andrea m. maechler introductory remarks by andrea m. maechler i will begin with a review of developments on the financial markets and look at the status of the swiss franc. after that i will say a few words about the upcoming transition from libor to saron as the new reference interest rate in switzerland and inform you about progress being made on this front. situation on the financial markets so let me start with developments on the financial markets. in the second half of the year, sentiment on the financial markets darkened considerably at times, despite the fact that the economic situation in many countries remained sound. nonetheless, the economic data did weaken slightly in some regions. this caused investors to focus on a number of risks – most notably, ongoing concerns about protectionist tendencies, but also the currency crises unfolding in several emerging economies and italy ’ s budget dispute with the eu. as a result, volatility on the financial markets has increased significantly since mid - year ( cf. chart 1 ). this is particularly true of the equity markets, where prices fluctuated substantially at certain points. thanks to strong economic data and solid corporate earnings growth, us stock exchanges performed better than their counterparts in europe and the emerging markets ( cf. chart 2 ). despite suffering sizeable losses in october, the s & p 500 recently closed only moderately lower than it had at the end of june down 3 %. in europe, the stoxx 600 lost around 9 % over the same period. various factors contributed to the weak performance of european stocks. economic momentum has weakened of late and corporate earnings growth remained below expectations in the third quarter overall. moreover, currency turmoil in turkey and the budget dispute between italy and the eu weighed on europe ’ s stock exchanges. in switzerland, the smi has managed to gain around 1 % since mid - year. this page 1 / 5 berne, 13 december 2018 andrea m. maechler news conference above - average showing was predominantly due to a strong performance in july, which in turn was mainly driven by positive corporate news in the pharmaceutical sector. on the interest rate markets the picture initially remained mixed due to uneven growth momentum in the major economic regions since mid - 2018 ( cf. chart 3 ). in the us, the federal reserve confirmed that it intended to maintain its policy of gradual interest rate rises. against this backdrop, yields in the us continued to rise and the yield on 10 - year us treasuries

##p efforts of the systemically relevant infrastructures and their major participants. moreover, the report contains concrete requirements for the different players and identifies room for improvement in various respects. one measure, which has meanwhile already been implemented, concerns the creation of an alarm and crisis organisation that spans the entire financial sector. the final conclusion that can be drawn is that it is the responsibility of the individual company to ensure information security. regulation, oversight and supervision play only a secondary role. information security deserves to be accorded appropriate priority by every board and every management, regardless of whether the company is a global player or a small savings bank.