Exchange Traded Products – ETP

A type of security that is derivatively-priced and which trades intra-day on a national securities exchange. Exchange Traded Products are derivatively-priced, where the value is derived from another investment instruments such as a commodity, currency, share price or interest rate. Generally, exchange traded products are benchmarked to stocks, commodities, indices or they can be actively managed funds. Exchange traded products include exchange traded funds (ETFs), exchange traded vehicles (ETVs), exchange traded notes (ETNs) and certificates.

The most popular exchange traded product is the exchange traded fund (ETF). These are securities that track an index, commodity or basket of assets. Exchange traded notes, on the other hand, are a type of unsecured, unsubordinated debt security. The value of an ETN can be affected by the credit rating of the issuer and not just changes in the underlying index. Exchange traded products have experienced huge growth since they were introduced. Different tax treatment applies to the various types of exchange traded products.