A new joint Wall Street-Academic report titled 'Leveraged Losses Lessons from the Mortgage Market Meltdown' lays out the complete devastation of the subprime mortgage crisis ($400 billion), and it's ripple affect on the financial sector ($2 trillion) and on the economy (GDP loss of 1 to 1.5 perecent).

UBS has significantly increased its estimate of huge fourth-quarter losses from the American sub-prime mortgage crisis, further increasing the pressure on Marcel Ospel, its chairman.

The cloud of uncertainty hanging over the credit markets was thrown into sharp relief yesterday as UBS told investors that it still could not be sure about the full financial impact of the credit crunch.