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ESMA Economic Report No. 1 - Retailisation in the EU - 2013

They look at higher yield, opaque retail products - "alternative" UCITS and structured products. Surprise, on a risk-weighted basis your plain vanilla bond index outperforms. And not just because of the financial crisis and Eurozone crisis. Fees are ridiculous, and some issuers are also able to get in on the skimming. The report seems to be focused on disclosure rather than mis-selling or "know thy customer" But maybe that's due to variation in approach among national supervisors. However, given cross-border market integration, something more than disclosure is required to deal with mis-selling and fees inflation. Have to look at the report more carefully, but this dreck seems to be saleable beyond sophisticated investor limits. -- downloaded pdf to Note