The evening entertainment for roughly 500 financial executives at the Deutsche Bank global derivatives conference last month in Barcelona did not come cheap — the Rolling Stones reportedly were paid more than $5 million.

“The best part is, it’s coming out of your bonuses,” Mick Jagger joked to the crowd.

The hosts of the conference could well afford it. After all, the business of creating new finance vehicles like derivatives and structured products has exploded in recent years. And at the time of the conference, there remained a mostly rosy view of such instruments, because of their ability to help businesses and investors spread out risk.

But the global financial turmoil — set off by problems with subprime mortgages — has prompted a backlash in some quarters against such financial engineering.

More broadly, it has led to a better understanding of the downside of spreading risk so well — it can be felt in all corners of the world, unsettling hedge funds, banks and stock markets as far away as Australia, Thailand and Germany. In effect, reducing risk on a global scale appears to have increased it for some players.