thoughts on Merril Lynch notes/my meeting with financial advisor

[Allinlife]

I talked to a financial adviser couple weeks back and after discussing things like my tolerance for risk, my income, my plans, he brought up this thing called Merrill Lynch notes and basically told me that they are guaranteed to beat the index, and even if index goes down it will only go down as much as index does, but not more.

I naturally questioned how that could be, since I thought risk/reward relationship was always present in the finance world, and why not everyone is doing it, I was told there is a minimum investment amount that keeps some people away, and that it's a relatively new and lastly it uses some system that takes advantage of options system.

it sounded almost too good to be true, which always gives me some doubt in my mind, but this guy is someone that was recommended to me by a close friend whom I respect very much (experienced business man/ CPA). so there is a little conflict about that.

what kind of questions should I ask him next time I meet up with him? I'm hoping to invest something to the tune of 80k with maybe 6/10 risk tolerance level, 10 being the highest.