Compare

Product pages explain one instrument at a time. These put two or three side by side and state the trade-off explicitly — including the cases where the answer is "neither, for this job". No page here concludes that one option is simply better, because none of them is. Education only, as everywhere here — see the disclaimer.

The badges say how much a page assumes: Easy everyday words, nothing to look up · Medium one idea you may need to look up first · Hard written for people who work in the market.

Any two of them, on the axes the atlas declares

The pages below are written arguments about the pairs that deserve one. For every other pair — and there are thousands — put any two instruments side by side: what each one is, how much it assumes, what its facts box says and which of five failure modes decides the outcome. Nothing there is written for the pair, which is the point: every line comes from the same tables the two product pages print, so a difference you see is a real difference in the atlas rather than somebody's summary of one.

The comparisons

• ETF vs. Fund vs. CertificateEasythree wrappers that can deliver an identical index return and put you in three completely different positions when something fails. Includes the dividend gap nobody prices.
• Options vs. Futures vs. CFDsMediumthree ways to take a leveraged view, with one structural difference that decides everything: only one of them caps what you can lose.
• Futures vs. ForwardsMediumthe same bet settled two ways. One pays you every evening and the other pays once at the end, and that difference has ruined people whose view was right.
• Credit Default Swaps vs. InsuranceMediumthe analogy is a good first sentence and a bad second one. Insurable interest, indemnity against a formula, and what backs each promise.
• Repo vs. Securities LendingHardthe same exchange with opposite motives. Follow which rate is negotiated and you can always tell which one you are looking at.
• Amortised Cost vs. Fair ValueMediumone bond, three reported numbers, and the choice was made before anybody knew which way the market would go.
• Value at Risk vs. Stress TestingHarda probability against a case. Neither is the other's approximation, and the gap between the two figures is the correlation assumption made visible.
• Defined Benefit vs. Defined ContributionEasytwo machines sharing one word. Each structure hides exactly the thing the other shows.
• Individual Bonds vs. Bond FundsEasyone matures and one does not. Whether holding to maturity really protects you, and the constant-duration difference that makes them non-substitutes.
• Physical vs. Synthetic ETFsMediumone owns the shares, one owns a swap. Why the synthetic version is often the better tracker, and the withholding-tax reason that actually drives it.
• Deposit vs. Money Market Fund vs. T-BillEasyfour ways to hold cash, each trading one comfort for one improvement. Small differences in normal times, decisive in a bank failure.
• Active vs. PassiveEasythe part that is arithmetic rather than opinion, what the evidence does and does not establish, and the genuine structural weaknesses on both sides.
• The Bond vs. the Share of the Same CompanyEasyone business, two claims, and almost nothing in common. Three sale prices where one holder's result is identical and the other's changes by everything.
• Three Places Cash SitsEasya deposit, a money market fund and a short government bill all behave like cash until something happens. Who owes you, who sets the rate, and what a bad week looks like in each.
• A Structured Note vs. Its PartsMediumalmost every note is a zero-coupon bond plus an option. Pricing the legs separately is the only way to see where the money went, and where the participation rate comes from.
• A Covered Call vs. Simply HoldingMediuman uncertain upside swapped for a certain payment. The three states at expiry, and the two ways the comparison is usually made unfairly.
• Currency-Hedged vs. UnhedgedMediumwhy the answer is close to settled for bonds and genuinely open for equities, and what a hedged share class does not do.
• Fixed vs. Floating RateMediumone fixes the cash flow and leaves the value open; the other does the reverse. Including the credit-spread duration that an FRN does not remove.
• Warrant vs. Turbo vs. Listed OptionMediumthree leveraged wrappers on the same share. One is cleared, two are promises, and only one prices where you can see it.
• Four Ways to Own GoldEasybars, an ETC, a future and mining shares. Two of the four behave like gold, and the fourth is an equity sector wearing the word.
• Accumulating vs. Distributing Share ClassesEasysame fund, two ISINs. What genuinely differs, what only appears to, and why the tax dimension decides it in some jurisdictions and nothing in others.
• Market vs. Limit vs. the Other Order TypesEasyone trade-off underneath all of them, why a resting limit order is an option you wrote, and why stops fail exactly when they matter.

How to use a comparison page

• Start from the job, not the product. "Which is better" has no answer; "which fits matching a payment in seven years" has a clear one.
• Read the structural difference first. Cost differences are measured in basis points and structural differences in whether you are repaid at all.
• Check what each side understates. Every comparison here has a section for it, because both camps in these arguments leave the same things out.
• Then price it. The calculators turn each comparison into a number for your own horizon and size.

For reading the documents behind these products, see the playbooks; for the mechanisms underneath them, the concepts.