McGahan: How structured products can lose your clients' money

To herald structured products as 'win-win' for clients except in the most extreme market conditions is highly misleading, Worldwide Financial Planning's Peter McGahan says.

Perhaps the single biggest question I am asked about is structured investment products and they bore me senseless. These are the products you will see listed in bank windows or sold over the phone or by direct mailers. They are sold as protecting the downside of client's money with an element of return on the upside and are, in most cases that I see, sold to risk averse investors as a reasonably simple and straightforward investment. However, these structured products (often murmured or muttered as guaranteed) are singularly the most complicated investment you could consider for yo...