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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Major corporations and countries are vying to tap into the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender travel market --what experts are now calling a $65 billion industry.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Archive of On Topic articles from April 2008.
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
With pets becoming more like members of the family—or even children, it's only logical that the next area they would soon become a part of is travel.
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
With soaring fuel costs, a rash of bankruptcies and industry consolidation, its fair to say U.S. airline carriers have hit a bit of turbulence lately. But what about the European airline industry? Like the old saying when the U.S. sneezes, the world catches a cold; will it apply across the pond?
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Travel agents used to be the go-to people for booking flights and mapping driving directions. But those days are long gone.
More News
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- Travel Insurance is Worthwhile In Some Cases, But Not Always
- Free Spring Break Trip? Not so Fast
- Some States Cash In on Confiscated Airport Items
- A Business Traveler's Guide to What and How to Pack
- Full-Degree Abroad Programs Expand Despite Dollar Woes
- When it Comes to Travel, the Senior Citizen Discount is Hard to Find
- Travel Abroad Shots Could Sting the Wallet
- All Inclusive or à la Carte: Which is the Better Vacation Deal?
- Destination Nanny Services: What You Should Know
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FOX Translator
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Welcome to the major leagues of debt. Collateralized debt obligations, almost always referred to as a CDOs, are horrendously
complicated deals that often leave anyone without a MBA wondering what was put into these CDOs.
The first thing to
understand about bonds, (aka debt) is that bonds are often backed by something else. Think about your home mortgage. If you
don't pay your mortgage, the bank can take the house. You end up homeless, and the bank sells the house to pay off the rest
of that mortgage. There is something "backing" that mortgage; something lender can fall back on, if you don't pay your bills
like a good human being. That's called collateral.
CDOs are one flavor of an entire sector of investing called structured
finance, and they are also backed. CDOs, in the simplest concept, are just bonds backed by something else. In most cases,
a CDO is backed by a collection of various types of debt. CDOs can be home mortgages, or other types of debt like credit cards,
auto loans, and personal loans. Most of these types of debt are usually considered a bit more risky and they don't have the
backing that a home loan does. So, if you think it through, you can imagine that CDOs are usually considered a risky investment.
To take a step further, understand that CDOs have multiple flavors within each CDO. These flavors are called tranches. If you've taken French, you might recognize the word, it means "slice" or "portion." Each slice of that CDO you invest in is a little different and carries different amounts of risk.
You could invest in the lowest risk tranche of the CDO, which would
provide you lower risk. But, you don't get a good return on that investment. Or, you can be the heroic adventurer of bonds
and invest in the lowest-grade tranche of the CDO. You'll make an amazing return, but if the economy even looks at you wrong,
you might lose the entire investment.
CDOs aren¿t easy, and are almost always invested in by mutual funds, insurance
companies and hedge funds. As an individual investor, you will probably not come across a CDO you can participate in.