esmust David Bianco,

Golub Joins UBS as Stock Strategist After Leaving ING (Update2)

By Eric Martin and Whitney Kisling - August 17, 2009 13:19 EDT

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Jonathan Golub, among the most bullish Wall Street stock strategists at the start of last year, joined UBS AG after leaving ING Groep NV.
Golub became UBS’s U.S. equities strategist, according to a company memo dated today, leaving ING’s investment unit after two months. His new job was previously held by David Bianco, who took a similar post at Bank of America Corp. in June.
Golub began 2008 as the chief investment strategist for Bear Stearns Cos., predicting the Standard & Poor’s 500 Indexwould climb 16 percent to 1,700. That forecast tied him with Bianco and HSBC Holdings Plc’s Kevin Gardiner as the most bullish among strategists tracked by Bloomberg. The index fell 38 percent, the steepest decline in 71 years. Golub left Bear Stearns after it was bought by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
In his new position, Golub will work on UBS’s “strategy and valuation business” with Janet Pegg, the U.S. accounting analyst, and Tom Doerflinger, U.S. equities strategist, according to the memo. Pegg also worked at Bear Stearns, where she was an accounting and tax analyst for 25 years.
At ING, Golub also was responsible for providing investment ideas to clients and worked with the asset allocation team. The position was new when he took it, according to a June ING statement.
Predicting Gains
In a Bloomberg Radio interview last month, Golub predicted the S&P 500 will climb to between 1,000 and 1,100 by July 2010. He also said volatility was “extraordinarily low” and recommended buying options, as the market was “underestimating the impact of a potential shock.
“What we’re going to have here is a slog,” Golub said in the July 15 interview. “The economy is going to basically drag through the mud toward something more positive.”
Before Bear Stearns, Golub spent six years as the U.S. equity strategist and co-head of U.S. equities client portfolio management at JPMorgan Asset Management, ING’s statement said. Overall, he has more than 20 years in the investment industry, according to the memo.
Golub, 44, graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He is based in New York.
To contact the reporters on this story:Eric Martin in New York at emartin21@bloomberg.net;Whitney Kisling in New York at wkisling@bloomberg.net.