Blog

Our experts frequently write blog posts about the findings of the research we are conducting.

Announcement Informational Post Investor Alert Litigation Summary News Press Release Regulatory Notice SLCG Research

Displaying 10 out of 16 results for "Structured Products".

SEC Scrutinizing Exchange Traded Notes

(Dec 2013)

Risk.net is reporting that the Office of Capital Markets Trends of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking into the details of exchange traded notes (ETNs). The office, headed by Amy Starr, is looking into the fees and the disclosure of risks and formulas used to determine ETN indicative values according to statements made by Starr at the Structured Products conference in Washington, DC on December 10.

ETNs have been a frequent subject on the blog and regulators have issued...

Fidelity to Launch Mutual Fund Based on Hedge Fund Strategy

(Oct 2013)

We see it again and again: complex investment strategies packaged into traditionally conservative investments. We have seen corporate debt linked to exotic derivatives positions (structured products), exchange-traded products linked tocomplex futures positions (commodities and volatility ETPs), variable annuities linked to options strategies (structured product based variable annuities), and even certificates of deposit with complex payoff structures (structured CDs). Now, we are seeing more...

Investors Returning to Capital-at-Risk Products

(May 2013)

Yakob Peterseil of Risk.net recently noted that "[b]anks are boosting issuance of leveraged notes linked to US equity indexes and notes that pay out when yield curves steepen." According to the article, reverse convertibles and buffered notes are seeing a resurgence as investors begin to be more optimistic about stock market growth. In addition, principal-protected structures like structured certificates of deposit and principal-protected notesare falling out of favor as attractive terms are...

Barclays' Structured Product Linked to a Basket of ETFs and Indexes

(Mar 2013)

RISK.net recently posted an article entitled "IWM urges investors to think about risk-adjusted returns" in the structured products portion of their website. The article describes in detail a Barclays product for which Institute for WealthManagement, LLC (IWM) served as the basket selection agent. Interestingly, the basket is composed mostly of ETFs, which have been appearing in structured products more frequently as the ETF industry itself has become more mature. IWM's Matt Medeiros talked...

Apple's Declining Stock Price and Structured Products

(Jan 2013)

Jason Zweig at the Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece on a part of the Apple story that hasn't gotten much press: many equity-linked structured products are linked to the common stock of Apple.

SLCG has recently completed an analysis of the market value of outstanding structured products linked to Apple common stock (AAPL). In the following figure, we plot the total quarterly issuance of AAPL-linked structured products in our database since the first quarter of 2009.

As Apple's common...

Attractive Yields and Hidden Risks

(Dec 2012)

The Wall Street Journal had a great piece this weekend concerning the investments some investors are seeking out to find yield in this low interest rate environment. Investors are taking on more and more risk to realize the yield they once found commonplace and this article brings a few examples to the forefront.

The risk investors are taking include credit risk (high-yield/junk bonds), market risk (closed-end funds trading at a premium) or some combination of the two (structured products)....

Dual Directional Structured Products are Risk.net's "Trade of the Month"

(Nov 2012)

Last week a UK firm called Meteor launched a "Bull and Bear Growth Plan" linked to the FTSE 100 that has a payoff similar to a structured product that has garnered significant interest recently: Dual Directional Structured Products (DDSPs). Dual directional products are Risk.net's 'Trade of the Month', and they have chosen this issue as their featured product.

Generically speaking, DDSPs pay out a positive return if the underlying index or stock linked to the product changes in value...

Big Wall Street Firms Pressure Their Salesmen to Favor House-Brands

(Jul 2012)

Financial advisors and brokers are bound by ethical guidelines to analyze and recommend investment products that are suitable and appropriate for their clients' investment objectives and tolerance for risk. In general, they are obliged to put their clients' best interests ahead of their own.

The New York Times reported Monday on the recent admission from a former JPMorgan mutual fund advisor that he sold JPMorgan funds over similar offerings from outside JPMorgan for no other reason than to...

WSJ on Innovation in Commodity ETFs

(Mar 2012)

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran an article about recent innovation in the commodity ETF space. Our work on commodity ETFs has focused on their use of constant-maturity rolling futures strategies, which incur a roll yield depending on conditions in the futures markets. Now, according to the WSJ, many ETF issuers are choosing more complex strategies to try to mitigate these and other effects in commodities markets:

Some of these new products use complex formulas to identify commodities...

In the News: Structured CDs

(Feb 2012)

Bloomberg News reported this week that FINRA is investigating a relatively new type of product that ties the returns of certificates of deposit (CDs) to derivatives. These products are known generally as 'Structured CDs' (SCDs) but also go by 'Index-Linked CDs', 'Equity-Linked CDs' or 'Market-Linked CDs'. There have also been news stories concerning Market-Linked CDs issued by Wells-Fargo and Equity-Linked CDs issued by Goldman Sachs in recent years.

SCDs have existed since the late 1980s,...

16 Results

1
2
>