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Old 02-01-2015, 03:58 PM
 
Location: moved
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"Structured finance" in the present context is a retail investment product, typically sold by a commissioned or salaried third party, that claims to guarantee a specified minimum return, and a multiple upon market earnings - in exchange for (sometimes) high fees. Purported the strategy involves derivatives-trading and other exotic stuff transparent to the retail customer.

I'd have thought that this topic comes up frequently on the Investment subforum, but a keyword search reveals very few hits, and all are tangential to the topic.

Question: who here has purchased structured-finance products in the past? Impressions? Relation between the ad and the actual outcome? Fees?

My personal interest is regarding the non-equity portion of my portfolio. By temperament and intuition, I'm leery of structured finance. But it is doubtless intriguing.
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Old 02-02-2015, 03:42 AM
 
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there is no official definition as to what these are other than they use investing and derivitives. they can be nothing more than some index linking to option contracts like they do for index linked annuities or cd's with min guarantees of return . some are nothing you can't do on your own manipulating indexes and options..

when rates were higher i used to do index linked cd's just like the insurers did. in fact i saved the instructions for doing it i came across many years ago which i used to follow

rates are to low now to do it but it gives you an idea how it was done..


How to replicate an equity-indexed annuity (EIA)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What is an EIA?

An EIA is an insurance contract that theoretically offers the buyer the opportunity to participate (to some extent) in equity market performance while guaranteeing a minimum payout at the end of the policy guarantee period. The extent to which the buyer participates in equity market performance typically varies year to year as does the minimum guaranteed crediting rate (AKA interest rate paid on the policy). This has proven to be a tantalizing pitch for many conservative investors. The problems with these policies are that you have little control over how much you participate in the equity market; the policies typically have high early surrender fees and very lengthy surrender periods (10+ years is not uncommon); the internal expenses of these policies are quite high; you are exposed to insolvency of the issuer; the participation is typically limited to price changes in an equity index, with no compensation for dividends on the index; the participation in the index is capped at a predetermined level so that really big gains are truncated within the annuity structure; and the tax treatment of eventual distributions may be less than optimal.

How you can “roll your own” EIA, part 1:

By far, the simplest way to set up an EIA is to do it in an uncapped version. The simplest uncapped replication portfolio consists of a 1 year fixed income investment (such as a CD) and a call option on whatever equity index ETF you want exposure to. So let us assume you can buy a 1 year CD that yields (APY) 4%, you want exposure to the S&P 500, you have $100,000 to invest, and you want a minimum yield of 1%. To replicate an EIA, you would buy the following:

CD: You want $101k in a year, so you invest $101,000/1.04 = $97,115 in a 1 year 4% yield CD. In a year, the CD matures and you get $101,000, which is your desired minimum payout.

Options: Your CD purchase leaves you with $100,000 - $97,115 = $2,885. You take this amount and buy at the money 1 year call options on the S&P 500 index ETF (ETF symbol SPY). At the money means that the option exercise price is about equal to whatever the ETF sells for today. So with SPY trading at $137.93 as I write this in April 2008, we wish to buy April 2009 calls with a strike of $138. Such a thing doesn’t exist, so we will settle for the closest month we can get, which is March 2009. March 2009 calls (Symbol SFBCH) sell for $12 each and must be bought in contracts on 100 shares each, so you want to buy $2885/$1200 = 2.4 contracts, but must buy 2 contracts for $2400.

So you end up with a CD that will pay $101,000 in a year, $485 in cash, and options on 200 shares of SPY struck at 138. The options cover a notional amount of $138 X 200 = $27,600, so your “participation rate” in the index is 27,600/100,000 = 27.6%, meaning that you catch 27.6% of the appreciation of the S&P 500 through next March while bearing none of the downside. When the options are about to mature, you can sell them for cash, assuming the market has gone up and they are worth anything. Otherwise, you collect your $101,000 from the CD, have your $485 plus whatever interest it generated, and decide if you want to play this game again for another year.


Rolling your own, part 2:

Instead of having a small, uncapped participation in the index, you could have a larger participation but cap it at a given level. This is essentially what is done inside the EIA contract sold by most insurers. To replicate the EIA, you would buy the same CD as in the above example. However, the options portion would include:

1) Buy the at the money options on the index as in the above example
2) Sell out of the money options for the same expiration date and underlying ETF.

An example will be helpful:

Lets assume that you would be willing to cap your upside in return for a higher participation rate. That means you want to buy call options at the money ($138 strike) and sell call options at a strike that is about 10% higher ($152 strike). The $152 strike options currently trade for about $5.50 a share. So we buy:

4 contracts of the at the money options (SFBCH) for 400X12 = $4800

And we sell:

4 contracts of the 10% higher strike $152 (symbol SYHCV) and receive cash of $400X5.50 = $2,200.

Total out of pocket for the options is $4,800 - $2,200 = $2,600.

So you end up with a portfolio that consists of a CD that will pay you $101,000 in a year, $285 in leftover cash, and a package of options that gives you up to 10% of the upside on 400 X $138 = $55,200 worth of the S&P 500 index. Note that by capping your potential upside you have increased your participation rate to $55.2% of your $100,000, or double the uncapped version.

Last edited by mathjak107; 02-02-2015 at 03:53 AM..
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