"You can tie one to how many points Kobe Bryant might score" in a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game as long as the risks are disclosed, said Robert Colvin, president of Robert Colvin Consulting LLC, who created a structured CD program for community lenders. "Banks have the ability to write those contracts any way they want."

Given the increasing complexity and lengthening maturities of the investments, Finra wants to make sure they're properly understood by investors, Maria Rabinovich, a lawyer in the watchdog's risk division, said in a Feb. 6 interview in New York.

"HSBC supports Finra's efforts to ensure financial products, including market-linked CDs, are properly understood by investors," Juanita Gutierrez, a spokeswoman for the bank, said in an e-mailed statement.

'Suitability'

The industry watchdog "continues to be focused on the creation and distribution around new products, particularly around suitability and how the products are being represented and marketed to retail investors," Michelle Ong, a Finra spokeswoman, said today in an e-mailed statement. "We cannot say that this will necessarily translate to an increased focus of exam resources, or even a special review, but there is not one now."

Goldman Sachs offered a four-year CD in December tied to the monthly returns of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Under the best scenario, the investment would return as much as 24 percent annually. Under the worst, the CD would return the minimum 0.5 percent, less than half of what an investor might earn putting money into a traditional CD that matures one year sooner.

13 Percent Odds

To reach the maximum yield, the Dow would have to steadily gain by at least 2 percent each month over the life of the CD, according to disclosures in an offering statement. Gains higher than 2 percent aren't passed on to the CD investor.

The odds of making more than the minimum 0.5 percent may be as low as 22 percent and the chance of earning more than the current rate on a four-year, fixed-rate CD may be as low as 13 percent, according to more than 100 years of monthly Dow returns analyzed by Bloomberg.

Michael DuVally, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs in New York, declined to comment.

Structured CDs allow investors with as little as $1,000 to be involved in the derivatives market. Unlike traditional CDs, which typically have no commissions and have fixed penalties if a buyer sells before maturity, an investor exiting some structured CDs has to sell on the secondary market, meaning the amount of principal returned is subject to how much buyers are willing to pay.

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