The Truth About Structured Products And Why Brokers Promote Them

From the AARP Money Newsletter:

Structured products - now being sold to small investors in record numbers - are so complicated that the brokers who sell them don't always know how they work. But unlike investors' returns, the brokers' commissions are guaranteed.

The article starts off describing how one investor in a principal-protected note from UBS Financial Services lost his entire investment ($130K) during the financial crisis.