Going back in time – USA 2006 | Structured Retail Products

SRP’s USA database was launched in 2006, the year in which Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a lawyer while quail hunting. In the same year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 12,000 for the first time, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL by a score of 21–10, and the US housing bubble burst, with 1.26m foreclosures filed during the year, up 42% from 2005. Meanwhile, Bank of America topped the structured products charts.

Two thousand three hundred and seventy-nine products (2,379) from 70 providers collected a combined sales volume of $21.2bn. In contrast, sales for 2014 were $50.3bn across 11,523 products from 30 providers.

The two best-selling products were Asia FX Bull Notes linked to a basket of currencies issued by Eksportfinans, and Enhanced Participation Notes linked to the S&P 500 issued by Goldman Sachs, each selling for $500m. The Eksportfinans product offered a 1.4x participation in the rise of a basket of eight Asian currencies, and offers 100% capital protection. The Goldman product returns 1.6x the rise in the S&P 500, capped at 117.38%, and only protects 2% of downside.

Of the 70 providers issuing structured products in 2006, 22 are still active. Bank of America was the market leader in 2006, while today the bank sits in 10th place on the leaderboard, in terms of volume, selling 119 products, with a value of $4.6bn. In 2014, the number of products sold dropped to 94, with a significantly smaller value of $2.5bn.

In 2006, JP Morgan sat in eight place for volume, with $840m sold across 242 products. Today, the bank has skyrocketed to first place, with 1,844 products valued at a collective $8.25bn, a rise of 882%.

View our analysis and reports section for a full overview of the US market between 2006 and 2015.