ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Synthetic CDO

Okay kiddo, let me explain what a Synthetic CDO is.

Do you know what a CDO is? It means Collateralized Debt Obligation. It's like a big box of different types of loans, like mortgages or car loans, that people have taken out from different banks.

Now, a Synthetic CDO is a type of CDO, but instead of holding actual loans, it holds something called "credit default swaps."

That's a big word, but let me break it down for you. A "credit default swap" is like a type of insurance. It means that if a loan goes bad, the person or company that bought the swap gets paid money to help cover the losses.

So, a Synthetic CDO is basically a big box filled with a bunch of these swaps instead of actual loans. The idea is that if some of the loans that the swaps are based on start to fail, the people who bought the swaps can use the money they get from the insurance to help cover their losses.

Now, that might sound like a good idea, but there's a downside. When lots of people start buying these swaps, it's like lots of people are buying insurance policies for the same thing. Imagine if lots of people all bought insurance for the same car at the same time. If that car crashes, there might not be enough money to go around to cover everyone's losses.

That's kind of what happened with Synthetic CDOs. Lots of people were buying these swaps, and when lots of loans started to go bad, there wasn't enough money to cover all the losses. It caused a big financial crisis, which is like a really big problem for the economy.

So, while a Synthetic CDO might seem like a good idea, it can actually cause big problems if too many people are buying them and there's not enough money to cover all the losses.