ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

LIBOR market model

Okay, kiddo, let's talk about something called the "Libor market model."

You know how sometimes people borrow money from the bank, and they have to pay interest on that money? The interest rate they pay is called the "Libor" rate, which stands for the "London Inter-bank Offered Rate." It's basically the average interest rate that banks charge each other when they lend money.

Now, the Libor market model is a way of predicting what the Libor rate will be in the future. It's like trying to predict the weather – just like meteorologists study things like pressure systems and temperatures to predict what the weather will be like tomorrow, the Libor market model uses lots of fancy math to try and figure out what the Libor rate will be in the future.

There are a lot of complicated things that go into the Libor market model – things like interest rates, volatility, and something called a "stochastic process" (which is just a fancy way of saying "random stuff that we can't predict"). But basically, the idea is to use all of this information to figure out what the Libor rate is likely to be over time.

Why does this matter? Well, lots of things depend on the Libor rate. If you're borrowing money from the bank, you'll want to know what the interest rate is going to be in the future so you can plan accordingly. And if you're investing money, you might want to use the Libor market model to help you make decisions about where to put your money.

So that's the Libor market model in a nutshell – a way of predicting what the Libor rate will be in the future so that people can plan accordingly. Cool, huh?