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Our experts frequently write blog posts about the findings of the research we are conducting.

Displaying 131-140 out of 232 results for "Principal Protected Notes".

Apple's Declining Stock Price and Structured Products

(Jan 2013)

Jason Zweig at the Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece on a part of the Apple story that hasn't gotten much press: many equity-linked structured products are linked to the common stock of Apple.

SLCG has recently completed an analysis of the market value of outstanding structured products linked to Apple common stock (AAPL). In the following figure, we plot the total quarterly issuance of AAPL-linked structured products in our database since the first quarter of 2009.

As Apple's common...

NERA Releases Annual Report on SEC Settlement Trends

(Jan 2013)

Last week, NERA released their annual report on trends in SEC settlements for the 2012 fiscal year. The report represents the annual update to NERA's analysis of their proprietary database of SEC litigation releases and administrative proceedings published since July 21, 2002. We've been covering these reports for about a year now and we were excited to see the results of this updated study.

According to the report, the number of settlements rose nearly 7% from FY11. While the number of...

Structured Product Issuers Under Pressure to Disclose Estimated Value

(Jan 2013)

According to securities law firm Morrison & Foerster's Structured Thoughts newsletter, the SEC may soon require issuers of structured products to disclose the estimated value of the product on the front page of the prospectus. From the newsletter:

Elaborating on the [SEC's] sweep letter, the Staff noted that issuers must disclose the "issuer estimated value" on the cover page of the offering document, and share this information with investors prior to the time of sale. This estimated value...

SLCG Research: Dual Directional Structured Products [Update]

(Jan 2013)

We have significantly updated our working paper on dual directional structured products (or simply dual directionals). Since our first version of the paper, our work has been covered by RISK.net and in November of 2012 RISK.net named a dual directional as their trade of the month. The latest version of the paper is available from the SLCG website and SSRN.

In this version of the paper, we expanded our scope by studying all dual directionals registered with the SEC since 2008. We divide dual...

Structured Products: 2012 Year-End Market Review

(Jan 2013)

Last year, we covered Bloomberg's summary of the 2011 structured product market by noting that almost "$45.5 billion worth of SEC registered structured products were sold in the US in 2011, down only slightly from $49.4 billion in 2010." In 2012, 7,909 notes totaling just over $39 billion worth of SEC registered structured products were sold in the US -- a decrease of nearly 15%.

Interest rate products continued their decline in popularity with a decrease of almost 30% from 2011 to 2012....

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - December 28th, 2012

(Dec 2012)

SEC Charges Two Brokers with Insider Trading
December 26, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22581)
This week the SEC filed an amended complaint (opens to PDF) charging research analyst Trent Martin with tipping brokers Thomas C. Conradt and David J. Weishaus with nonpublic information about IBM Corporation's acquisition of SPSS Inc. Martin learned of the impending IBM-SPSS transaction "from an attorney friend who was working on the deal." Martin, Conradt, and Weishaus allegedly traded on the...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - December 14th, 2012

(Dec 2012)

SEC Charges Massachusetts Company, CEO and Promoters With $9 Million Securities Fraud
December 14, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22572)
According to the complaint (opens to PDF), BioChemics, Inc., its CEO, John Masiz, and two individuals paid to solicit investors, Craig Medoff and Gregory Kroning, "made false statements to investors about collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies and the status and results of drug trials of [BioChemic's] main product." Additionally, the SEC claims...

Structured Products Highlight: Citigroup ELKS Linked to YAHOO!

(Dec 2012)

Today we're highlighting a structured product issued on May 25, 2011 by Citigroup. This product (CUSIP: 17317U501) is an Equity LinKed Security (ELKS) linked to Yahoo! (YHOO).

ELKS are similar to reverse exchangeables in that the notes pay periodic coupons (monthly at an annualized rate of 9.50% in this case) and protect principal on a limited basis (if YHOO's price remains above the $13.08 trigger during the term of the note). In contrast to reverse exchangeables, once a trigger event occurs...

SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - December 7th, 2012

(Dec 2012)

SEC Secures Trial Victory and Obtains Over $2.1 Million in Disgorgement and Penalties in Market Manipulation Case
December 6, 2012, (Litigation Release No. 22561)
A final judgment was entered against brothers Mayer Amsel and David Amsel "following a bench trial in a market manipulation case involving the securities of a company known as East Delta Resources Corp." The final judgment orders the brothers to pay, jointly and severally, over $2.4 million in disgorgement, pre-judgment interest, and...

PowerShares to List Actively Managed Downside Hedged S&P ETF

(Dec 2012)

Late last week, Invesco PowerShares filed a form N-1A registration statement with the SEC to list an exchange traded fund (ETF) with exposure to the S&P 500 with downside exposure actively hedged through VIX futures contracts. The PowerShares S&P 500 Downside Hedged Portfolio (PHDG) seeks to "achieve positive total returns in rising or falling markets that are not directly correlated to broad equity or fixed income market returns" and has annual operating expenses of about 39 basis points....

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