And like many mad scientists he couldn't sell* the low-fee result to any of the big marketers (looking at you Allianz)
Here's Institutional Investor:
PowerShares’ co-founders are re-entering asset management, this time with the first exchange-traded fund lineup that will mimic annuities and bank structured products.*Back in 2010 we had a mad scientist anecdote in "CME Group expands dairy complex with cheese futures" which I intro'd with:
Bruce Bond and John Southard, who co-founded Invesco’s PowerShares, are returning to the exchange-traded fund industry with the first ETFs to offer benefits found only in bank structured products and annuities.
The ETFs, which have not yet been approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission, are so-called defined outcome products, which are rules-based and have pre-determined returns on the upside and capped losses on the downside.
Structured notes offered by banks and insurance company annuities provide similar benefits, but charge hefty fees and contractually lock up investor money. Bond and Southard’s new ETFs, which will be subadvised by Milliman Financial Risk Management, will be priced at under 1 percent, a fraction of the cost for similar insurance and bank products. The ETFs will all track the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index....MUCH MORE
Years ago I heard of a Chicago company that made a whey-based artificial cheese.
Apparently the operation was headed by a mad scientist type who had come up with the formula but had no marketing ability.
He was producing the stuff and not selling any, converting all the investors cash into this "analog" goop and storing it in Chicago area warehouses.
Then the Chernobyl reactor blew, the price of whey skyrocketed, I've no idea what the connection was, the company went broke and the receivers opened the warehouses to find tons of this 'cheeze', semi-molten in the summer heat.
That's what I thought of when I saw this story, tons of the stuff oozing out of bonded warehouses. No connection of course, just a visual....
