The big difference between products and assets is cost

Products are....
....investments created by the financial services industry, usually targeted at the retail investor (you and me). They exist to make things easier for the consumer to access a wide choice of assets. Ironically, this very factor makes them hard to assess. Products are created by Providers.

They are difficult to evaluate because....
....you are investing both in the assets underlying the product and in the legal and administrative mechanisms layered on top of the assets. This brings additional issues of;

• risk (do you know how safe is the vehicle investing on your behalf?);
• management control (how do you know the managers of your product will continue to do what you thought they promised to do?);
• liquidity (on what terms can you sell and can those terms be altered after you have invested?);
• transparency (how do you know what's going on and/or how do you find out any of the above?);
• and, above all, added costs.
  

Our advice
Conventional advice, particularly to the small investor, is to buy simple products because buying assets directly is hard.

Our advice is completely the opposite. It is extremely easy these days for the small saver to buy assets directly and most products are completely unsuitable for any but the sophisticated investor. If in doubt, don't buy products.