The sales veteran who has been with J.P. Morgan since the beginning of his career discusses his trajectory alongside the evolution of structured products over the past 20 years.
When Brandon Igyarto (pictured) was admitted to University of Chicago, the 18-year-old believed majoring in economics would give him “a broad exposure to a variety of different markets”.
That idea stood when he was hired by the structured products/derivatives desk at J.P. Morgan in 2006 upon completing a 10-week trainee programme in sales and trading.
“As someone without much of a Wall Street background, I was nervous about landing on a desk supporting a product that became obsolete,” said Igyarto who now manages a team of over 20 in the banking giant’s structured investments distributor marketing (SIDM) division, reporting to Ludovic Peiron.
“Derivatives more broadly, and structured investments at J.P. Morgan specifically, is an ever-evolving cross-asset business where you have no choice but to become an expert in a broad range of spaces and then utilize that toolkit to help clients navigate different cycles in the market.”
J.P. Morgan is the largest issuer of structured notes in the US by sales volume with an average market share of 15%, according to SRP data.
The lender booked US$11.2 billion in traded notional of structured notes and market-linked certificates of deposit (MLCDs) for H1 2025, setting a new high from US$10.6 billion for the prior-year period. The volume came to US$21.8 billion for 2024.
The investment banker of Inverness, IL was raised by two hard working parents in human resources and computer programming. “Don’t be afraid to fail as that’s how you learn,” they encouraged their son to find his “best fit”.
In the autumn of 2006, Igyarto officially started his career at J.P. Morgan in its US third-party structured investments team within SIDM led by Scott Mitchell, the current CEO of wholesaler InspereX. The 22-year-old met his future wife of Little Rock, AR when playing for J.P. Morgan Co-Ed Softball team in the following year.
Some members of that team later became familiar names in the US structured products industry including Larry Wilson, Stephen Czick and Angela Raitzin.
“When you’re working more than 12 hours a day, you really need to have great camaraderie to avoid burn out and focus on the growing the business,” said Igyarto.
The next two years saw major US banks building out their calendar of offerings including J.P. Morgan. “We were excited to sign some big independent broker-dealer agreements. Principal-protected notes and market-linked certificates of deposit (MLCDs) were a big thing back then,” said the sales executive who was then an analyst.
Then 2008 came. The pricing equation started to go against issuers/hedge providers as rates ticked lower while volatility went higher. As a result, protection and equity exposure became more expensive.
“Over the course of three to four months, all of our core protected products became unattractive, at exactly the time clients really needed protected solutions. So we were forced to innovate,” recalled Igyarto.
One solution that came from his team was the JPMorgan Efficiente (USD) Index which was originally designed for an Italian client as a benchmark for MLCDs utilising a rules-based portfolio allocation strategy.
The index became the first quantitative investment strategy (QIS) in a line of J.P. Morgan indices that went on to raise tens of billions in sales, according to Igyarto.
After assuming Bear Stearns’ debt obligation in 2008, J.P. Morgan began to build up its own exchange-traded notes (ETNs) platform which “has been much more intentional” compared to tranche-based notes.
“We’ve learned that any product must be sufficiently differentiated given the abundance of exchange-traded linear solutions out there,” said Igyarto, pointing to the success of AMJ linked to the Alerian MLP Index.
Introduced in March 2009, the JPMorgan Alerian MLP Index ETN (AMJ) generated US$6 billion in net assets at its peak.
Meanwhile, Igyarto acknowledged some products falling flat among a total of 45 ETNs issued by the bank since. “That’s ok and we still think new ideas are worth trying.”
As the rates cycle began to turn between 2018 and 2019 and demand for autocalls boomed.
J.P. Morgan focused on innovating in product design alongside a push for pricing and issuance automation, which later led to products like the MerQube Vol Advantage Indices, according to Igyarto who was promoted to managing director in 2017.
SRP data shows that the structured notes linked to the MerQube Vol Advantage Indices have garnered US$3.7 billion in traded notional exclusively on the paper of J.P. Morgan since 2021.
As the competition in automation intensified, concerns around standardisation and concentration started to arise, particularly in the aftermath of the 2020 stock market crash.
“We’ve seen over the years the effect that can be had if the business is concentrated in a specific space or product and you get a shock directly to that area. That can have long-lasting effects on the whole ecosystem of customers, issuers, broker-dealers and wholesalers.”
More recently, Calamos Investments brought the first autocallable exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the MerQube US Large Cap Vol Advantage through a total return swap on a basket of structured notes. The ETF has amassed US$200m in net assets since its inception in June.
“I’ve always thought that the day I felt either my personal career or the business no longer had an upward sloping forward, is the day that I would look for something else to do”, said Igyarto, a father of three. “Here we are, nearly 20 years in, I think the future is incredibly bright in our business.”
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