True to form, the naming strategy in the Structured Products market is at the cutting edge of marketing. No sooner had every poster on every bus and every bus stop (in London, at least) lauded the new Spiderman film, than we found - from a quick dip into wikipedia - that S&P was there first.

Ratings agencies are notoriously reactive by nature, but the SP specialists at S&P are doing their bit to change that perception. And what a good job they have, and thank the lord for acronyms.

From the distinctly unpromising start of SPDRs, or Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts, we have the brief relief of reading that the acronym translates into Spiders. And the Spiderman association is surely no accident, as the wikipedia entry points out: "Spiders are run by State Street" is surely a line from the film. The only uncertainty is whether there is, in fact, a Spiders 1, Spiders 2, and a Spiders 3. Peter Parker should be told.