Structured products

Special report

The financial crisis encouraged investors to ditch complex payouts in favour of simplicity. For many retail and some institutional investors, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) presented a cost-effective, simple alternative. However, some participants believe the very popularity of this product has created a massive anomaly in equity markets – correlation has jumped to high levels and remained there since June.

Some analysts hypothesise this is the result of money pouring into the ETF sector – as orde