The great thing about banging your head against the wall is that it feels so good when you finally stop.

After many years of demonstrating an almost unique ability to lose money in its investment bank - it has lost money in five of the past six years - UBS and its shareholders have been experiencing a sense of elation ever since the bank announced its plans in October to radically scale back its investment bank and throw in the towel on large parts of its fixed-income, currencies and commodities business.