Feeding the volatility monster: Inside Wall St's US$8b time bomb
Financial players created US$8b of products tied to one index alone, while investors desperate for returns snapped them up as bankers collected fees
IT was the hot trade on Wall Street, a seemingly sure thing that lulled everyone from hedge fund managers to small-time investors.
Now newfangled investments linked to volatility in the stock market - until a few years ago, obscure niche products - have exploded in spectacular fashion. The shock waves have only just begun.
How these investments proliferated is a classic story of Wall Street salesmanship and old-fashioned greed. In a few short years, financial engineering transformed expectations about the ups and downs of the stock market into an asset class that could be marketed and sold - as tradable as stocks but, it turns out, sometimes far riskier.
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