Exchange-Traded structured products as a tool of gaining exposure to precious metals price-risk

Abstract

Structured products have become a  convenient instrument allowing financial investors to gain exposure to commodity price risk. Due to prolonged rally in precious metal prices these commodities have drawn particular attention of portfolio investors in recent years. Structured products are offered both: on the OTC markets as well as on organized exchanges. Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) have introduced first precious metal structured products in 2007. During the year of 2012 GPW significantly increased its range of structured products, which now includes five types of instruments: capital protection certificates, bonus certificates, tracker certificates, turbo certificates and factor certificates. They offer investors a  wide range of investment strategies from simple reference commodity price tracking (trackers) to agressive strategies based on leverage and short positions. Although trading history is still short and structured products are traditionally relatively illiquid instruments, the data from 2012 and 2013 show that these instruments (particularly products based on silver and gold prices) are among most actively traded structured
products on GPW.