Alan Blinder, Princeton University

CNBC's Trish Regan sits in for Maria Bartiromo to discuss the day's top business and financial stories, and look ahead to Friday's Closing Bell.

CNBC's Mary Thompson reports on the trading day from the NYSE.

"The Swiss financial sector (is) adopting the global standards on exchange of information in tax matters," Urs Roth, CEO of Swiss Banking Association, said Thursday as he considers the future of the industry. Swiss banks have weathered the crisis well, he added.

"There's a certain risk that growth will surprise to the upside in the very short term. This is due to a normalization of inventories and the usual thing of people being too skeptical," Christian Gattiker from Julius Baer said Thursday. "The second half of next year is still rather on the bumpy side."