Remember when the world of finance was a peaceful place with clear lines separating institutional and individual investors? Individual investors diversified portfolios by allocating weights to the three major asset classes: cash; bonds; and stocks. Institutional investors accessed additional levels of diversification, including passive and active equity strategies, geographic dispersion, private equity, real estate, commodities, and hedge funds. How times have changed!

Goldman Sachs has taken the crown for the third consecutive month with its main rival J.P. Morgan failing to keep up.

In April, the US structured notes market booked a total of US$15.1 billion in traded notional from 5,051 issuances, approximately 20% of which came from the paper of Goldman Sachs.

There has been significant growth in interest among financial advisors in structured notes in recent months. Many advisors who already have allocations are seeking to expand them as a means of diversification, according to alternatives platform CAIS.