The market was seduced by Goldman Sachs’ buoyant first quarter into believing the banking outlook might not, after all, be so dismal. Beware.

Only weeks ago, UBS’s then chief executive Marcel Rohner suggested the Swiss banking group might be profitable this year. By Wednesday’s shareholder meeting, any timeframe for returning to profit had disappeared – in spite of surprise plans to cull a further 8,700 jobs.

UBS is, of course, not Goldman Sachs. It has specific, home-grown problems. There may, too, be some kitchen-sinking by Mr Rohner’s successor, Oswald Grübel. But it is a pointer to the nasty surprises that can still spring up.

Investors paid insufficient attention to the $22.7bn of toxic assets UBS was left with even after offloading $39bn worth to the Swiss National Bank. In particular, its $5.3bn exposure to monolines probably accounts for the bulk of SFr3.9bn of fresh writedowns that produced its unexpectedly large first-quarter loss.