Healthy balance sheets and a wave of innovations should continue to ensure above-average growth in the technology sector.

The economy follows more or less regular cycles, swinging like a pendulum between phases of strong growth and periods of weaker growth, or even recession. During recent decades, the motion of this pendulum has become noticeably more unstable.

Patrick Odier talks about the Swiss financial center and explains how Lombard Odier is expanding its investment platform to seize growth opportunities in Switzerland and beyond.

It’s still too early to draw all the lessons from the financial crisis. But if there’s one thing investors have been reminded of, it’s that asset allocation remains the key challenge in managing a portfolio.

Cooperation to reduce tax fraud is increasing on an international level. The new tax agreement with France will require us to comply with the French tax authorities’ requests for information regarding taxpayers for whom there are well-founded suspicions. However, this agreement does not spell the end of bank-client confidentiality.

After suffering the steepest declines during the bear market that started in the fall of 2007, emerging markets have been the biggest winners over the last six months.