Too much sophistication. I was a relatively new associate in the sales and trading division of a major investment bank. One of our tasks was to value and manage risk for structured securities, which can be a very complicated affair.My particular job was to help prepare materials used by a sales force that sells less-risky securities to such traditional investors as insurance companies, pension funds, and fixedincome mutual funds. Riskier securities were sold to hedge funds.At one point I realized that a relatively obscure valuation approach commonly used for another product could help traditional investors understand specific types of risk associated with their investments. I wrote some materials to describe the approach, but my director told me not to share them with the sales force.He said that he didn’t want traditional investors to start viewing their securities in this way. It would complicate the sales process and make it harder to create demand for new deals.However, I thought we owed it to our clients to provide a more sophisticated risk valuation method.Hint. Note that this case concerns a company decision, rather than the decision of this individual.