Indexes
Banca Fideuram focuses on clarity
Tightening spreads are making it more difficult for banks to factor protection into their products and although the market is stabilising, having protection and products they understand is still an important factor for Banca Fideuram’s customers. Clare…
Strategic thinking
Banks and index providers have been quick to colonise the investment space vacated by stressed hedge funds after transparency became a byword for popularity. With both now offering proprietary dynamic strategies and promising alpha returns, will they end…
Product performance
Comparing principal-protected, accelerated growth and reverse convertible products with June 2009 strike dates
UK accumulation
Barclays is offering an accumulator product based on the FTSE 100, with lock-ins for every 15% rise in the index subject to a 60% cap. If the index does not trade above a 115% strike level and the 50% protection barrier is breached, capital is not…
Markit to start trading emerging market sovereign credit risk index
The Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA (Central and East European, Middle East and Africa) index will start trading on January 20. The index is part of the Markit iTraxx SovX family of sovereign credit default swap indexes.
Commodity investor sentiment positive, BarCap survey reveals
Barclays Capital’s fifth annual commodities investor survey reveals positive sentiment towards commodity investing.
Risking the first 10%
Gilliat Financial Solutions is offering a six-year income product linked to the FTSE 100 that promises a fixed coupon as well as bonus payments, but only if investors are prepared to put 10% of their capital at risk
Emerging versus developed
Duggan Asset Management is offering a three-year-and-11-month simple growth product that plays emerging against developed markets equities. The product is 95% capital protected and incorporates final averaging
India finds some forward momentum
The global financial crisis could easily have sounded the death knell for India’s nascent structured products market. But as the country’s equity markets have resumed their upward trend, dealers say equity-linked structures are catching on fast.
The index artists
The past 12 months have posed a new set of challenges for the indexing and exchange-traded fund markets. But as delegates to the Art of Indexing Summit USA in New York heard on October 28, providers are adapting to the changed landscape. Now it is simply…