Structured Products Americas: education still hampering market development

Education emerged once more as the most vital ingredient for the successful development of the market, according to the majority of speakers at the Structured Products Americas conference. Equal attention was paid to regulation, while the product of the moment has to be the one based on volatility, the newest asset class. Richard Jory reports from Coral-Gables, Miami.

Dayna Kleinman, Robert W Baird

"There is nothing that fails so spectacularly as success that is misunderstood," according to Martin Bronfenbrenner, an economist whose words capture the state of the structured products market in the Americas. When the costs and the benefits of these investment products are understood by investors and vendors, their place in portfolios makes sense. But it is their complexity, or perhaps the perception of complexity, that has endangered development.

At the same time, the regulatory wheels have