The subprime meltdown includes the economic and market fallout following the housing boom and bust from 2007 to 2009.

A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a complex financial product backed by a pool of loans and other assets and sold to institutional investors.

A subprime mortgage is normally issued to borrowers with lower credit ratings. It typically carries a higher interest rate that can increase over time.

A synthetic CDO is a collateralized debt obligation that invests in credit default swaps or other non-cash assets to gain exposure to fixed income.

The subprime market is the business of lending money to people or businesses who are at a greater risk of default on their payments.

The meltdown of the subprime mortgage market in 2007 and 2008 led to the Great Recession. Learn more about the factors that caused the financial crisis.

Collateralized debt obligations are exotic financial instruments that can be hard to understand. Learn the role they played in the 2008 financial crisis.

In the early and mid-2000s, high-risk mortgages became available from lenders who funded mortgages by repackaging them into pools that were sold to investors.