The Benefits of Trading

From thestreet.com 8/19/08

While discussing the market's trials and tribulations with folks at a party this weekend, some interesting observations arose.
One guy who is in fixed income seemed to be the most talkative. Although he has always made a good living, his phone seldom rang, even in a very busy major brokerage office. It was the equities guys rocking and rolling for years.
Now as equities have become shaky investments, his fixed-income desk is in big demand. Fixed income represents safety and a hint of return, he said. We laughed at the rates seen in Treasuries, the fed funds rates and inflation. And we chatted a bit about the relationship between inflation and fixed-income returns.
Another guy spent his days in structured products. He told me that they were busy creating products -- anything that would pull people out of cash. He mentioned a bizarre structured product called a Barrier Note. It appears to be a structured investment that plays out like this: ...
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