(Bloomberg) — Banks are selling a record amount of U.S. structured notes tied to the stocks of fast-growing, volatile technology companies such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.

Sales of securities linked to Facebook soared to $457.6 million this year, more than double the $204.2 million issued during the same period of 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The social media company, founded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, went public in 2012.

Investors are flocking to products tied to social media companies, where more volatile share prices help banks improve structured-note terms that have been hurt by low interest rates. Expected price moves in Facebook’s stock are nearly twice as high as for the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, based on measures that derive volatility from the prices of options.

Note issuers are “trying to put shiny objects in front of the client,” said Michael Lynch, managing director at Twenty-First Securities Corp. in New York. “They’re volatile names and that’s what’s going to catch the investor’s eye.”

The most popular technology stock for U.S. structured notes is Apple Inc. though sales of such securities fell 22 percent to $566.5 million from the same period in 2013, Bloomberg data show. Facebook’s volatility, as implied by prices of three-month options, was 2.32 times the level of Apple’s on April 16, though has since shrunk to 1.12 times higher.

Better Terms

Higher volatility leads to better terms on certain kinds of notes. UBS AG sold 18-month notes linked to Apple on Dec. 8 that pay 9.36 percent a year, with protection against 20 percent of losses, according to a prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The bank sold similar-maturity securities tied to Facebook the same day that pay 10.4 percent with 25 percent protection, a separate prospectus shows.

Facebook stock has returned 39 percent this year while Twitter shares are down 44 percent. Apple has returned 37 percent.

More established technology companies like Apple have posted steady profit growth while shareholders of Facebook and Twitter have focused on the companies’ online advertising potential, according to Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co.

Issuers have sold $114.6 million of U.S. structured notes tied to the stock of Twitter during its first full year of public trading, making it the sixth most popular among technology companies. Amazon.com Inc. Micron Technology Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. ranked third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

Sales Jump

Investors have purchased $1.88 billion of structured notes linked to the 10 most popular technology stocks so far this year. That’s 31 percent more than the amount of structured notes tied to last year’s 10 most popular companies, during the same period.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield dropped to 2.07 percent on Dec. 16, its lowest since May 2013.

Vanessa Chan, a spokeswoman for Facebook, and Natalie Miyake, a spokeswoman for Twitter, declined to comment. Tom Neumayr, spokesman for Apple, didn’t return requests for comment. Megan Stinson, a spokeswoman for UBS, declined to comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Eisen in New York at beisen10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Richard Bedard at rbedard2@bloomberg.net