An Exchange-traded Note is structurally a piece of unsecured debt issued by a financial institution that promises to pay the return of a specified index, less fees. It trades intraday like a stock, which is what makes it look like an ETF cousin — but it is not a fund and holds no underlying assets. The investor is a creditor of the issuer, exposed to the issuer’s credit risk in addition to the market risk of the referenced index. If the issuer fails, the ETN is a general unsecured claim in bankruptcy. That credit risk is the one structural distinction that matters; everything else — access to leveraged, inverse, currency, commodity, or volatility exposures — is also available in some ETF form. For the selection criteria and the cases where an ETN is the right wrapper despite the credit risk, see section “Exchange-Traded Notes (ETNs)”.