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Accelerated Return Notes (ARN) were 
debt securities
A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
offered by Merrill Lynch from 2010 to 2012 and due in 2013 that were linked to gold spot prices.
ARNs are senior, unsecured debt securities of Aktiebolaget Svensk Exportkredit (SEK), a public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...
Swedish
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Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
export credit corporation. The notes are not guaranteed by the FDIC
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures credi ...
or secured by collateral. The notes are an equal rank with all of SEK's unsecured debt. The notes offer a leveraged return, although under a cap, if the gold spot price grows significantly from the initial value. The term of these notes is 14 months and are sold at $10 per unit, capped at a return from 18% to 22%.
References
Securities (finance) Stock market {{finance-stub