An interesting story in the Jerusalem Post. Apparently, an application for a class action against Israel’s Bank Hapoalim (for NIS 500 million, approximately US$118 million) was filed this week at the Tel Aviv District Court. The plaintiff, Ella Politis, a customer of the bank, alleges that for a number of years Bank Hapoalim has been unfairly hiding fees in it structured products. She demands that the bank return to its customers the hidden fees that it charged on structured deposits, which she estimates at 500 million NIS. The story can be accessed here.

...Keydata...for the third year running. The UK structured products distributor was the recipient of the 'best structured products provider of the year award' at the Professional Adviser awards ceremony in London this week. The awards have been running for three years and Keydata has won each year. Professional Advisor (PA), like Structured Products, is an Incisive Media owned title.

Some great comments on the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) website merit a look. The comments are in response to the SEC’s proposal to raise the investment threshold for anyone who wants to invest in hedge funds. By and large the respondents argue that retail investors have every right to invest in whatever they want and that regulators have no right to interfere.

I love a good panel debate and I'm not just talking from a journalist's perspective. There's nothing better than a controversial discussion to kick off a conference. Even better when there are regulators involved.

Inevitably when we write about the UK market in Structured Products magazine we find it a bit of a struggle to find any interesting products. In editorial letters it's all too easy to label the market 'boring' or 'arcane'. It looks like things may be changing, however.

Just before Christmas the chief executive of a major European investment bank told me that constant proportion debt obligations (CPDOs) would be the talk of December 2006 and then everyone would forget they ever existed. How wrong he was.

The Economist has chosen to write about weather derivatives this week, and I can't help think it did so thanks to the snow that covered London earlier this week. The newspaper notes how hedge funds have taken to weather derivatives. I wrote about this extensively more than two years ago when I worked as deputy editor of Structured Products' sister magazine Energy Risk. In fact, I think I wrote about this when I used to work for our other sister title, Risk, and I left that magazine almost five years ago...

The FT today reported that JP Morgan is this week to join Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs as a provider of hedge fund replication strategies. JP Morgan’s Alternative Beta Index looks, on the face of it, similar to the Merrill Lynch Factor Index (MLFI). As we reported in January, it was Merrill and not (as was widely misreported) Goldman which was the first bank to market with a hedge fund replication strategy. To read the article click here.

The structured products market is "the most exciting investment class in the financial services industry." That's according to the New York-based Structured Products Association (SPA), admittedly a biased source. But the association has a point. Growth in the US market was certainly impressive in 2006, and 2007 looks set to be even more successful.

Chinese walls between equity analysts and other investment bank departments are vital. I wouldn't dare suggest otherwise. However, an article in The FT today, goes to show that these barriers are apt to result in one thing - namely confused marketing messages.

Deutsche Börse and Dow Jones have both released new short selling versions of their flagship indexes today. The Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 Short Index and the Deutsche Börse Short Dax both replicate short investment strategy and offer investors a way of achieving positive returns in downwards markets.