ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Flight-to-quality

Imagine you have a bunch of toys, and you love them all, but some toys are really special to you. When you think something bad might happen, like your little sibling coming and smashing your toys, you want to keep your special toys safe. That's kind of like what "flight-to-quality" means.

In the world of money and investments, people have different things they can put their money in. Some of those things are extra safe and reliable, and some are riskier. When there's some kind of problem that makes people think they might lose their money, like the stock market going down a lot, they might want to "fly" or "go" to the extra safe and reliable things instead.

These extra safe and reliable things might be things like government bonds (which are like IOUs from the government), gold (which has held value for a long time), or even just keeping their money in cash. When people do this, it's called a "flight-to-quality," because they're leaving the risky things for the extra safe things - they're "flying" to quality. By doing this, they hope to keep their money safe in case things get worse.

So, to sum it up: "flight-to-quality" is a term that describes people putting their money into really safe and reliable things when they're worried that they might lose their money. It's like a kid putting their special toys away when they think something bad might happen.