Structured products
WHAT IS THIS? Structured products are investments that have multiple components. For retail investors, the most common form is a bond plus an option – these tend to be standardised, sold in small tickets and large volumes. Managing the risks of large structured products portfolios is one of the biggest challenges dealers face.
Structured products house of the year: UBS
Risk Awards 2025: bulked-up structuring team is more than just the sum of its parts
Gamma jitters from defined outcome funds
Tumbling equity markets could flip dealers’ exposure to gamma from long to short, leading to hedging losses
Asia moves: Senior hires at HKEX, UBS and more
Latest job news from across the industry
T+1 shift sparks dividend chaos in HK structured products
Products staying on T+2 leave providers scrambling to deal with ex-dividend dates caught inbetween
DVAs inflate US banks’ liabilities by $4.9bn
Credit spread retrenchment since last year’s crisis comes with flipside of larger structured-product liabilities
Regulatory crackdown puts Korea autocalls in deep freeze
Mis-selling fears see distributors pull back, leading to 40% issuance fall in a month
Options market still searching for cause of the Vix plunge
BIS paper blames yield-enhancing structured products, but market participants are unconvinced
Canada’s FRTB pioneers get snowed on fund-linked trades
As Basel capital reforms go live, risk managers eye early adopters’ progress and push to improve capital treatment of fund-linked products
How China’s equities intervention caused a quant fund quake
Popular leveraged market-neutral trade crumbled after government stepped in to support major indexes in February
China snowball knock-ins fuel futures sell-off
Market participants say issuer re-hedging has helped drive Chinese equity indexes lower
Corporates eye FX options as hedging costs shrink
With hedge ratios tipped to rise, dealers say treasurers are increasingly open to optionality
First Korean issuer joins Hong Kong warrants market
Kisa anticipates warrant and autocallable hedging synergies
At US banks, paper losses on HTM securities hit new high
Bank of America leads way as mortgage-backed securities drive aggregate rise in Q3
Huatai launches its first Hong Kong CBBC
Two more securities houses set to follow Chinese firm into Hong Kong’s listed structured products market
Korea’s ‘worst-of’ times are here to stay
Chinese houses’ success in Korean autocalls could stymie hopes of diversifying the product mix
Swiss autocalls ‘10% away from disaster’ as Roche shares slide
Popular ‘worst-of’ products flirt with downside barriers, but issuers see no cause for hedge alarm
Banks mull structured notes as term SOFR basis hedge
ARRC signals opposition to passing term SOFR-SOFR basis risk to investors via structured payoffs
Japan autocall curbs upend Nikkei vol
Lack of reinvestment alongside FSA review forces scramble to buy back hedges as products knock out
How MerQube sold Wall Street on open indexing relationships
Four-year-old Silicon Valley firm sees growing role for third parties as indexes become more complex
Token effort is no blockchain boon for illiquid assets
Cash-like tokenised instruments find takers; initiatives based on less liquid assets struggle to take off
Rising rates lead to greater interest in structured products
Trading volumes ‘could increase fivefold’ as a result of short-term rates rise