Best-of times around the corner

Worst-of structures have dominated Asia’s structured product business for the past year. But as product providers try to differentiate themselves, alternative structures incorporating ‘best-of’ payouts have started to emerge. Jill Wong reports

Worst-of options have been the staple of the structured products market in Asia for the past year and a half, during which time billions of dollars worth of these products have been sold to private banking clients and retail investors.

With equity-implied volatilities falling to record lows during the past year, the market has shifted emphatically away from single-stock equity-linked notes to products linked to a basket of stocks, with the addition of correlation enabling dealers to