Odd Lots

Big tech stocks have had an enormous impact on the stock market, with Magnificent 7 companies like Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia now dominating equity indices and basically dictating the path of benchmark returns. And of course, there's been loads of discussion about the real transformational value of AI and whether it's all going to end up being one big bubble. But tech investing and big disruptive trends like AI aren't just for equity investors. They're playing out in the credit market, too. And of course, building the data centers and producing the chips that power AI requires huge amounts of capital — much of which is sourced via bonds and loans. Increasingly, a lot of that capital is coming from private credit players, one of the biggest of which is Apollo Global Management. In this episode, we speak with Rob Bittencourt, a partner at Apollo and co-head of opportunistic credit, about how the tech story is playing out and what Apollo is doing in the space.Read More: Private Credit to Outperform in a Downturn, Apollo’s Zelter SaysOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if your contracts could be a roadmap to running your business – the first step in managing your relationships with your suppliers and clients? That’s the function of Sirion, a contract lifecycle management software for in-house legal departments. This episode of The ROI Rules of AI explores how Sirion has recently been upgraded with generative AI functionality designed to make it something the whole company can use, not just its legal staff. This episode is sponsored by IBM.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2022 and 2023, the Federal Reserve basically had one focus: defeating inflation. That's now changed. Keeping inflation at bay is still important, but the Fed is now attuned to labor market risks as well. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee about how the US economy achieved something that almost nobody thought was possible: a marked decline in inflation without a major increase in the unemployment rate or a slowdown in economic activity. We discuss what actually happened to the economy over the last four years. What was the role of monetary policy in bringing down inflation? How much of the inflation turned out to be transitory all along? And what are the risks today, with the September jobs report having come in much stronger than expected? He explains why the Fed has shifted its priority and how he's thinking of risk management at this point in the economic cycle.Read More:Three Fed Officials Shrug Off CPI Report, Bostic Open to Pause Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In recent years, we've seen the emergence of cities whose main industry is that they're a great place to live if you're rich. Dubai would be the ultimate example of this dynamic. But it's not just Dubai. Lots of cities, all around the world, exist to cater to the wealthy, with a set of laws and taxation schemes that act like a magnet for global wealth. So how do these cities work? How big are they? And what exactly do they offer the global rich? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, author of The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks The World. She talks about these booming types of cities, how they emerged, and where they are going. Read more: Miami Wealth Boom Fuels $13 Billion Firm Serving the Ultra RichOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Multi-strategy hedge funds are still all the rage on Wall Street, but what does it actually mean to be a pod shop and how are they being set up? On this episode, we speak with Dan Morillo, co-founder of Freestone Grove Partners and formerly a partner and head of equity quantitative research at Citadel (one of the most successful multi-strats out there.) While lots of people tend to talk about multi-strategy hedge funds as one big blob, he argues that there are important differences in their business models. We talk about how he identifies top portfolio managers, managing crowding risk, and the math behind compensation, scale and returns.Previously:How Hedge Funds Discover the Next Superstar Trader How to Succeed at Multi-Strategy Hedge FundsOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US is in the midst of a big effort to bring more semiconductor manufacturing onshore. Intel is the biggest US semiconductor manufacturer. There's just one problem. Intel has really been struggling to get its fab operations up and running in a timely, efficient manner. So what's the problem, and can the company turn things around? On this episode of Lots More, we speak to Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein Research and Mackenzie Hawkins of Bloomberg News to discuss the current struggles and future prospects for the company.Mentioned in this episode: Intel Gets Multibillion-Dollar Apollo Offer as Qualcomm CirclesArm Is Rebuffed by Intel After Inquiring About Buying Product Unit Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which may be better known as the Trump tax cuts. Due to the way fiscal policy works in the United States, a large component of the bill was temporary. And starting in 2026, millions of households are due to see higher taxes if the bill isn't extended or a new one is passed. Regardless of who wins the presidency, dealing with this tax hike is going to be a key political issue. But what is the TCJA? What was the idea behind it? And what happens if it expires? On this episode of the podcast we speak to Kevin Brady, who was the architect of the bill as the former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. We discuss both the economics and the politics of passing tax reform, and what Brady hoped to accomplish when he created the law.Read More: Trump Tax Cuts Would Cost More Than Almost All Federal AgenciesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this month, we got the surprising headline that the shuttered nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island will be restarted. Of course, Three Mile Island was the site of a famous disaster in 1979 — one of the incidents that contributed to the US pulling back on the construction of new nuclear plants. This particular reactor was shuttered in 2019, when the economics of it no longer made sense. So why the restart? And why is there generally more interest and excitement about nuclear than there has been in years? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Jigar Shah, the head of the Loan Programs Office at the Department of Energy. We talk about the big drivers both in terms of policy and economic conditions that have created this renaissance.Read More: Microsoft AI Needs So Much Power It's Tapping Site of US Nuclear MeltdownMicrosoft to Pay Hefty Price for Three Mile Island Clean PowerOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Look out. Supply chains are back in the news. As soon as next week, workers at all of the ports on the US East Coast could go on strike, crippling trade across a range of industrial and agricultural parts of the economy. So what's at stake? What do the workers want? Is there any prospect of the US government heading it off? On this episode, we speak with Craig Fuller, the founder and CEO of FreightWaves, about what the labor dispute is all about and how it could possibly hammer the economy in the weeks leading up to the presidential election. Read More: Port Employers Ask NLRB to Force Dockworkers to Bargaining Table Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Right now, industrial policy is back in vogue in the US. The administration is making an effort at reviving specific sectors, notably in areas of clean energy and semiconductors. But despite all of the money being spent on subsidies of various sorts, there's no guarantee it will actually work. If it were easy, every country would do it. So what are the conditions that make it possible? And how can it go sour? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Vivek Chibber, a professor at NYU, and the author of several books including Locked In Place, which compares the development experience of South Korea and India. We talk about the interaction of economic policy and domestic politics, as well as the specific political conditions that need to be in place that allow the government to provide "gifts" to companies, and for those gifts to actually turn into leading edge industrial leaders, rather than for that money to simply go into the pockets of investors. Among the things we discuss are: What industrial policy actually is and what it's going to take for the US endeavors to actually become successful. Read More:How Economic Complexity Explains Which Countries Become RichAdam Tooze on the Big Misconceptions of the Chinese EconomySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

These days if you talk to people about the stock market, they might talk to you about the effect of the Fed. Or they'll talk about the Mag 7 and AI capex spend. Or they'll extoll the virtues of passive, low-cost investing. It seems like you hear less and less about the art of security selection: Finding cheap diamonds in the rough that have been overlooked by other investors. But some people are still keeping that world alive. John Rogers is the founder and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, and in his primary mutual fund he invests only in mid- and small-cap companies. Recorded live on stage at the Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach, CA, we talk about his approach. He explains why he believes value investing still works, and the process he uses to select individual names. We also discuss what he looks for and how he researches stock picks. Among other things, he tells us why he's invested in The Sphere (yes, that Sphere in Vegas) as well as the company that makes the McFlurry machines for McDonald's.Read More: Stocks, Bonds Trim Declines After Waller Comments: Markets Wrap Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Future Proof Festival takes place right on the beach in Huntington Beach, California. Thousands of registered investment advisors from all over the country come to talk shop, take pitches from vendors, eat tacos, drink beer, and listen to a concert from Third Eye Blind. On this Lots More, we talk with Sam Ro, the author of the Tker.co newsletter about the RIA scene, financial media, behavioral finance, the Fed, and the business of musical artists playing at conferences. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, the Fed cut benchmark rates by 50 basis points. Lower financing costs should be a relief for companies that need to borrow in the form of bonds or loans. But, the weird thing about the previous few years of high rates and high inflation is how much corporate credit has defied expectations. While defaults increased slightly, there wasn’t a huge wave of bankruptcies. And most companies haven’t really had trouble finding financing, with a smorgasbord of options available to them — including from the booming private credit market. So what happens now that the Fed is lowering rates? In this episode, we speak with Danielle Poli, co-portfolio manager of Oaktree’s Diversified Income Fund and a founding member of the firm’s investment committee, about how she sees the next leg of the credit cycle unfolding, and how she decides between a multitude of potential investments in the space. Related Links:The Black Hole of Private Credit That’s Swallowing the EconomyThe Hottest Way for Banks to Get Risk Off Their Balance Sheets Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s Fed Day, and while everyone expects the central bank to cut benchmark interest rates, the key question is by how much? Will it be 25 basis points or 50? Investors are evenly split between the two possibilities, setting up one of the most uncertain meetings ever. So what does a big bond manager do on a day like this? In this episode, we speak with Dan Ivascyn, Group CIO at Pimco, where he manages the $158 billion Pimco Income Fund. He tells us what he’s expecting from the FOMC, and what he’s seeing in terms of financial conditions and the real restrictiveness of the monetary environment right now. He also walks us through what Fed day is actually like at Pimco, where he thinks the economy is going, and answers the question of whether — with rates finally going down — bonds might be back in favor.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

15 years ago was a pivotal moment for financial media. On the one hand, we were in the midst of a huge financial crisis, which shook everything up and exposed how little we knew about our own world. In addition to that, we were in the early moments of a revolution, which saw the rise of blogs, podcasts, "Finance Twitter" and other new platforms for disseminating information about markets and business. One of the winners from that era was Josh Brown, a former stockbroker who rose to fame in part on the back of his must-read blog The Reformed Broker. Now he's the CEO of a large investment advisory firm, Ritholtz Wealth Management. He's got a popular podcast. He's got a new book. He's a fixture on CNBC. And he even has a conference business. We talk about his career path, what he's learned, some funny stories from the good old days, and how he became a media giant.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Financial institutions have been a leading target for cyber crime since the dawn of the internet. But phishing schemes have become far more intricate, and cyber heists go beyond stealing money from a bank. JF Legault, Deputy CISO at J.P. Morgan Chase, explains how he leads cyber defense on the front lines of work — and lays out a strategy to transform teams into early detection networks. Then David Adrian from Chrome unpacks how web browsing protections, robust monitoring, and a real-time view of threats can fit into this kind of strategy to maximize resilience to a cyber attack. This episode is sponsored by Chrome Enterprise.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, former European Central Bank President and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi published a long-awaited report examining ways to make the European economy more competitive. The report comes at a time when there are major concerns about how Europe is stacking up against the US and China in things like electrical vehicles and AI. It also dovetails with long-running debates about German fiscal austerity, economic tensions between various European Union members, energy crises, and inflation. In this episode, we speak with University of Massachusetts-Amherst economics professor Isabella Weber about her takeaways from the report and potential policy approaches to solving Europe's big competitiveness problem.Referenced in this episode:Draghi Says EU Itself at Risk Without More Funds, Joint DebtDraghi’s Call for Joint EU Bonds Hits Wall of German Opposition Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the big buzzwords over the last year or so has been "overcapacity." There's a constant line of argument that China is unfairly flooding the world with unprofitable goods and creating huge, unsustainable imbalances. Western countries, particularly the US (but also Europe), have responded by raising tariffs and engaging in domestic industrial policy in order to compete. But is the strategy sound? Are the basic premises of the problem correct? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Columbia Professor Adam Tooze, the author of several books, as well as the popular Chartbook newsletter. He argues that the overcapacity framing is misguided, and that the US may be making a mistake putting its chips down on an industrial revival. He talks us through some of the actual weaknesses of the Chinese model, as well as its global political reverberations. Read more: Two Veteran Chip Builders Have a Plan to Take On Nvidia The US and China Are in an All Out Race for AI DominationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the rare areas of bipartisan consensus in the US right now, is on the need to change our trading relationship with China. Former President Donald Trump started a process of putting tariffs on Chinese goods and limiting the export of certain key technologies. This has only expanded under the Biden administration, with expanded restrictions on things like electric vehicles, solar panels, and semiconductors. So what's the thinking behind this drive? What are the goals and what are the risks? On this episode we speak with the United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Ambassador Tai describes what she sees as a rethink, or a new version of, globalization. She explains the new worker-centric priorities, how trade fits into domestic investments, and what a healthy version of international economic relations actually looks like. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pretty much since the moment that cryptocurrencies came into existence, there's been a chorus of skeptics who argue that they solve no real world use cases, except for gambling and speculation. For a while, there was a lot of hype about things like Web3 or DeFi, but for the most part, these still remain in the realm of pure speculation and gambling. And so, the ultimate use case for crypto remains elusive. Our guest on this episode argues otherwise. He thinks that stablecoins, such as Circle or Paxos, which are backed by actual dollar instruments in regulated institutions running on public blockchains (like Ethereum or Solana) are solving a genuine problem in transmitting money, beyond just speculating on other cryptocurrencies. Austin Campbell is an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and the founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting. He also comes with a long resume at both crypto and legacy financial institutions. He explains why stablecoins are having a moment and explains the problems they currently solve (particularly internationally) and why legacy payments infrastructure is unlikely to serve the same needs.  Read more: The Case for Stablecoins Being the New Shadow Banks How Stablecoins Became a Powerful Force in Crypto  Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the problems in investing or trading is that — to use a common disclaimer — past results are no guarantee of future success. Someone can have a great track record in their stock picks, but maybe they just got lucky. Or maybe they were particularly well-dialed into one market regime that inevitably shifts. Or maybe they're actually just better than other traders. For multi-strategy hedge funds or "pod shops," there's an ongoing battle to hire or train the next great portfolio manager. But how can managers tell who is actually good and who isn't? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Joe Peta, who was previously the head of performance analytics at Point72 Asset Management and has had a long career in the trading world. He's also an avid fan of sports gambling, and the author of the recent book, Moneyball for the Money Set, which attempts to take some of the talent analytical principles that originated in Major League Baseball and apply them to evaluating portfolio managers. He talks us through the traditional approach funds use to find or create superstars, and how these approaches can be improved upon using more rigorous, quantitative methods.Mentioned in this episode: Hedge Fund Talent Schools Are Looking for the Perfect TraderHow to Succeed at Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's been a lot of talk about private credit in recent years. The market has exploded in size, and there are worries that it could be a bubble that eventually bursts and sparks disaster. But there are other negative effects from private credit that might already be happening. In a new paper called "The Credit Markets Go Dark," co-authors Harvard Law School professor Jared Ellias and Duke University School of Law professor Elisabeth de Fontenay argue that the $1.5 trillion market for private credit is already having a big impact on the economy — and not in a good way. They say that the rise of private credit marks a seismic change for corporate governance and dynamism.Read More: Odd Lots Newsletter: The Black Hole of Private CreditPrivate Credit Pushes Deeper Into Risk That Wall Street Is FleeingOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week at Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a short and powerful speech indicating that it's time for a policy pivot. The goal now, from his perspective, is to prevent further deterioration of the US labor market. His speech didn't delve much into theory or nuance. In this episode, we speak with Peterson Institute President, Adam Posen, who found the speech unsatisfying. He argues that the state of the labor market, while cooling, didn't merit a "rifle shot" approach, such as the one Powell delivered. He explains his concerns and how he sees the risks materializing from here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remember August 5th? That was the day that markets around the world plunged in historic fashion and everyone became an overnight expert on the yen carry trade. But what really is the yen carry trade? How big is it? Who is making the trade? And what is its connection to markets all around the world? On this episode, recorded at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, we speak with Hyun Song Shin, economic advisor and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements. He walks us through the mechanics of the trade, what went on in early August, and the lessons we've already learned from it.Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the Treasury market broke in March 2020, the Federal Reserve intervened in extraordinary fashion. It purchased more than $1 trillion worth of Treasury securities in that month alone. Superficially, this looked a lot like the Quantitative Easing that we came to know during the GFC. But it's purpose was different. This wasn't about depressing the yield curve or providing a form of strong forward guidance. Instead, it was the Fed taking on a role of the "market maker of last resort," so to speak. And yet, despite the different goals, the two different operations look the same and are carried out by the same officials (the members of the FOMC). This creates confusion, cost, and can create a situation where it looks like the Fed is working against itself. On this episode of the podcast, which was recorded in Jackson Hole at the Kansas City Fed's annual Economic Symposium, we speak with University of Chicago Booth professor, Anil Kashyap. He presented a paper at the conference proposing a separate tool within the Fed that can handle balance sheet operations for financial stability. We discussed his proposal along with broader questions about the transmission of monetary policy. Related link: Monetary Policy Implications of Market Marker of Last Resort OperationsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At Jackson Hole, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gave a clear signal that the rate cut cycle is likely to start in September. But of course that just opens more questions. Will it be a 25bps cut? Will it be 50? Could it be two 50s in a row? When does it stop? On today's episode, we speak with Peter Williams, a macro strategist at 22V Research. He walks us through his interpretation of Powell's speech and what to look for as the rate cut cycle begins. Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year’s Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming marked a big change for US monetary policy, with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell telegraphing the first rate cuts in potentially two years. But what’s it actually like to be a policymaker at one of the most famous economics conferences in the world? And what do central bankers do when they all get together to talk policy? In this episode, we catch up with Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin, who describes what it’s like to be at Jackson Hole, what’s discussed and how the annual agenda put together by the Kansas City Fed comes together. We also talk about Powell’s speech and how Barkin is viewing the labor market right now. Powell’s Pivot Leaves Traders Debating Size, Path of Rate Cuts Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City hosts an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s a chance for central bankers and other policymakers to talk about issues facing the global economy, debate academic literature, and provide further guidance on the future path of monetary policy. This week’s symposium marked a step change for the Fed, with Chair Jerome Powell announcing that the “time has come” for rate cuts after years of hikes. So what makes him confident that inflation’s been tamed? And what are the key pressure points to watch out for in the US economy now? On this episode, recorded in Jackson Hole shortly after Powell delivered his speech, we speak with Bloomberg TV’s Tom Keene and Mike McKee — both veteran Jackson Hole attendees — about what we just learned. Read more: Powell Says ‘Time Has Come’ for Fed to Cut Interest RatesFull Text of Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole SpeechOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Synthetic risk transfers, in which banks purchase insurance-like protection on some of their loans, is a growing market on Wall Street, with billions worth of deals made in the US last year. But of course, anything with the words "synthetic" and "risk transfer" is probably going to remind people of the 2008 financial crisis, when securitizations of loans blew up and infected the banking system. So what exactly are these new trades? Why do banks want to do them and what are investors getting in return for taking on this risk? In this episode, we speak with Michael Shemi, North America structured credit leader at Guy Carpenter, about what these deals are, how they're structured, and what they say about bank capital and the wider financial system.Mentioned in this episode:One of the Hottest Trades on Wall Street, An Etymological StudyJPMorgan’s Risk Swap Ends Up at a Familiar Place: Rival Banks‘Blind’ Bets on Bank Risk Transfers Have Never Been So PopularOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Political prediction markets — where traders can make bets on election outcomes — have been around for years. But in this cycle in particular, we've seen an explosion of interest, with people constantly checking the odds on sites like Polymarket and PredictIt to assess the state of the US presidential race. But how accurate are these markets? How do people make money on them? What do they tell us beyond what traditional polling or modeling already indicates? On this episode, we speak with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova, the co-hosts of the new podcast Risky Business. Silver is, of course, a famed election modeler, and both are serious poker players with good instincts for gambling and odds. We discuss how these markets work and what the markets and models are saying right now about the current US campaign.Read More at Bloomberg.com:https://bloom.bg/46Q66tShttps://bloom.bg/3X54rNPOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve appears to be ready to pivot into rate cutting mode. Inflation has come down significantly, and the unemployment rate has been trending upward for most of the year. In fact, in the most recent Non-Farm Payrolls report, the headline unemployment rate of 4.3% triggered the so-called "Sahm Rule," which has been a historically reliable signal that the US is already in a recession. So are we in a recession? Could the rule be wrong this time due the unique features of this economic cycle? How should the Fed weigh the risks that we see in front of us? On this episode of Lots More, we speak with the rule's creator, Clauda Sahm, Bloomberg Opinion contributor and the chief economist at New Century Advisors. She explains why the signal this time could be misleading, but also why — regardless of whether we're in a recession or not — the Fed must be on guard for a weakening labor market.Read More: My Recession Rule Was Meant to Be BrokenWhat’s the Sahm Rule? Is It Warning of a Recession?Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The past few years have thrown up a number of potential weaknesses in the American economy. There've been disruptions to supply chains stemming from the global pandemic. There are concerns about the availability of strategically important items like semiconductors and vaccines. Meanwhile, Russia's invasion of Ukraine roiled global commodity markets and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has created even more complications for shipping. So how is the US thinking about economic security and what have we learned? In this episode, we speak with Daleep Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council in the Biden Administration. We talk about how the government identifies areas of potential shortages and chokepoints, and what it does to try to get ahead of them.Mentioned in this Episode:Introducing the Chokepoint Economy, When Shortages Start to Matter Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to financing the US government's borrowing needs, the Treasury Department has some discretion in how it's done. It can sell 30-year Treasuries. It can sell 10-year Treasuries. It can sell a lot of three-month T-bills. Every quarter, it's always going to be some kind of mix. And in theory, the decisions about where on the curve it issues debt can have effects on the market and the economy, since different instruments have different liquidity and risk profiles. Recently, the Treasury has come under criticism for issuing a lot of short-dated debt. Some economists have dubbed it "Activist Treasury Issuance," with the allegation that Janet Yellen & Co. are purposely trying to counteract the impact of the Federal Reserve's quantitative tightening by issuing less debt at the long end of the curve. So is there anything to these criticisms? And how exactly does the Treasury go about making these decisions anyway? On this episode, we speak to a dissenting voice who argues that the Treasury has approached the task using the same methods it has always employed. Amar Reganti is a fixed-income strategist at Wellington Management and Hartford Funds, who earlier in his career spent four years at Treasury in the Office of Debt Management. He walks us through the Treasury's general issuance approach, why the funding mix changes over time, why it's been issuing more at the short end in recent quarters, and the overall strategy the government will use to fund what the Congressional Budget Office estimates will be another $20 trillion worth of borrowing over the next decade.  Read More at Bloomberg.com:Mnuchin Says It's Time to Kill the Treasury Bond He CreatedThe Trillion Dollar Legal Memo: FOIA Files Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hasbro has been making toys for decades, including many classic favorites like G.I. Joe and My Little Pony. But in recent years, it's also been going big on digital games. An app version of the classic board game Monopoly — called Monopoly GO! — has become one of the top mobile games of all time and grossed billions in revenue since it launched last year. Hasbro also owns Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and the best-selling video game Baldur's Gate 3. So why is gaming such a big growth market for a traditional toymaker? Where is the market heading? And how does a big company judge the success of "freemium" apps like Monopoly GO!? On this episode, we speak to Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks about the business of gaming.Read More at Bloomberg.com: Hasbro Stock Rises on Digital Gaming StrengthHasbro Names Microsoft’s John Hight to Lead Wizards Gaming Division  Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a lot of hype around generative AI and many people have interfaced with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini at this point. It's fun to ask these large language models to come up with a song parody or to write a story, but most casual users of the technology probably aren't worried about things like copyrights, the sensitivity of what they're inputting into the platform, or even the accuracy of the answers being spit out. It's just fun to play around with the technology. For large companies, however, there's a lot at stake. And concerns over data privacy and output errors are even more pressing if you're a big regulated bank. In this episode we speak with Goldman Sachs Chief Information Officer, Marco Argenti, about how the bank is balancing risks and opportunities in AI. Argenti, who previously worked at Amazon Web Services, talks about the development of Goldman's own internal AI tools, what the new tech means for Goldman engineers and other jobs, what makes a good prompt, and much more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The S&P 500 has plunged more than 5% over the past couple of trading days. The Nasdaq 100 is down 7%. The Nikkei fell an astonishing 13% on Monday and then triggered a circuitbreaker as it climbed up 10% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, measures of equity market volatility like the VIX have soared to their highest levels since the pandemic crisis of 2020. So what’s behind all these dramatic moves? There’s a long list of culprits, with market participants blaming everything from the Federal Reserve being behind the curve, to the deteriorating labor market and softer-than-expected payrolls data on Friday, as well as the unwinding of the yen carry trade, the bursting of the AI bubble, and the reversal of short-volatility trades. In this emergency episode of Lots More, we speak to Charlie McElligott, cross-asset macro strategist at Nomura, about what caused the selloff and how long it might last.Read More: $6.4 Trillion Stock Wipeout Has Traders Fearing ‘Great Unwind’ Is Just StartingRisky Borrowers Discover Doors Are Closing in Bond, Loan MarketsOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Nasdaq is now in correction territory and the S&P 500 is down more than 2% so far this month. Analysts are blaming any number of things for the selloff, including a slowdown in the economy, the Federal Reserve being behind the curve on rate cuts, hedge funds rotating out of positions, and waning enthusiasm for AI. But Matt King, the former Citigroup strategist who's now founded his own research shop called Satori Insights, argues there's something else going on. He believes that the world's central banks have only really just begun to drain liquidity from the system, and that the market is still sensitive to the push and pull of their big balance sheets. In this episode, he explains how central banks have pulled the plug on risk assets, why stocks are faltering now, plus his general approach to analyzing markets. For more on what Joe and Tracy talked about in this episode:https://bloom.bg/3A2c6TVhttps://bloom.bg/4dpfVkzSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, the Federal Reserve opted to keep interest rates unchanged while suggesting that it could cut as soon as September. But there's an ongoing discussion about whether or not the Fed is behind the curve, with some of the most recent data suggesting that the economy is already slowing. On Thursday, for instance, initial jobless claims rose to the highest level in almost a year while the ISM survey showed manufacturing activity shrinking by the most in eight months. So is the Fed making a massive policy error by keeping rates on hold? And does it matter? We bring back Macquarie strategist Viktor Shvets to discuss the recent central bank decision, the macro outlook, and the impact of geopolitical uncertainty. Read More: Fed on Course for September Rate Cut as Risks to Job Market Grow Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to chips for artificial intelligence, obviously the name that automatically comes to mind is Nvidia. The company is making a fortune selling semiconductors used for hot AI applications like large language models, and stock investors have rewarded it handsomely for doing so. But of course, Nvidia's GPUs can be used for more than just AI. They're also used for video games, graphics, cryptocurrency mining and more. But a new startup called MatX is aiming to build the ultimate chip just for LLMs. Co-founders Reiner Pope and Mike Gunter spent years at Alphabet, which has its own internal semiconductor operations, and now they've stalked out on their own to create a new chip company from scratch. We talk about how they're going about their job, what it takes to actually design and build a chip, and what it will take to get customers to switch over from the industry leader. For more episodes on this topic: Coreweave's CSO on What It Really Takes to Build an AI DatacenterInside the Battle for Chips That Will Power Artificial Intelligence Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe here: See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vapes like Elf bars seem to be everywhere now. Meanwhile, Zyn nicotine pouches have become a huge seller for Philip Morris and are in such demand that it's sometimes hard to find them in stores. So where are all these new nicotine products coming from? What's the regulatory approval process for these? And what is it like to launch a new nicotine product right now? In this episode, we speak with John Coogan, the former co-founder of dietary supplement Soylent and most recently the co-founder of Lucy Goods, which makes nicotine gum. We talk about the booming market for Zyn and other nicotine products, plus the byzantine ways in which some of these companies are structured. We also talk about the death of Juul and how we seem to have ended up with a very strange gray market for vapes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've all seen headlines about the multi-million dollar properties being sold in Miami. Right now, there's a $135 million mansion in Coconut Grove listed on Zillow, and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has been snapping up a string of expensive properties in the city, including a $100 million waterfront estate. So what's it like to actually deal in this market? And what are the ultra-rich looking for exactly? In this episode, we speak with Dina Goldentayer, the No. 1 individual real estate agent for broker Douglas Elliman. She's been active in the Miami area for almost two decades and has seen the market for ultra-luxury homes boom alongside her career. We talk about the difference between being a realtor who sells homes for $500,000 versus one that sells homes for $5 million, and whether billionaires are really buying houses after seeing them on TikTok.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Multi-strategy hedge funds, also known as "pod shops," have become the hottest ticket on Wall Street. The business model is supposed to allow hedge funds to operate more efficiently. That includes deploying capital in a more productive manner and better managing risk. But how does risk management at some of the most sophisticated funds on Wall Street actually work? In this episode, we speak with Rich Falk-Wallace, formerly of Citadel and now the founder and CEO of Arcana, which provides risk management and portfolio software for multi-strat funds. We talk about how risk models are impacting investor behavior and wider markets, how multi-strat traders come up with their ideas, and the factors that go into sizing and evaluating their positions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are several sources of tension right now between the US and China. Pure trade anxiety is a big one, with the US having imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, solar panels and other important industrial components. Then, of course, there are direct geopolitical concerns, with fears over a possible move by Beijing against Taiwan. And then there's artificial intelligence, which countries all around the world see as a crucial geopolitical asset, with the potential to transform economies and militaries if and when it reaches sufficient strength and power. And so, American-based labs are going toe-to-toe with Chinese ones, investing enormous sums of money to get ahead and stay ahead in this race. But what is this actually all about? What kind of advantage does America have in the AI race and can it be maintained? How might it change under another term of President Trump? On this episode, we speak with Jordan Schneider of the ChinaTalk newsletter and podcast, as well as Kevin Xu of the Interconnected newsletter, to discuss the state of play.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people talk about the special role that the US dollar plays in the global economy, that's often characterized as a privilege for the United States. It's seen as giving the government in Washington a great amount of fiscal flexibility, and it can be used as a means of punishing adversaries, by cutting them off from our banking system. But could it be that the currency dominance is actually a burden? JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, has made comments to this effect that dollar dominance doesn't serve America's interests well. On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Matthew C. Klein, co-author of the book, Trade Wars Are Class Wars, which helped popularize this line of thinking. We talk about the drawbacks to the dollar's strength, how it can hurt the US economy, and what policy measures might ameliorate these effects. We also talk about trade policy more broadly, and what effects a more aggressive tariff regime might have under a second Trump administration.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

According to numerous estimates, the US is massively short of housing. Zillow, for instance, says America needs to build 4.5 million new homes to climb out of this deficit. But right now we're not coming anywhere near to closing that gap. And in fact, the efforts by the Federal Reserve to tame inflation have likely made things worse, with higher interest rates slowing the construction of multi-family dwellings. So is there a way to create more homes, even in a time of high rates? In this episode, we speak with Jim Millstein, co-chair of Guggenheim Securities and a former Treasury Department official who managed the restructuring of AIG after the 2008 financial crisis. Millstein has drawn up a plan whereby Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac can enter the market for construction finance and re-start it. He walks us through how — with their existing legal authority — these two entities could make hundreds of thousands of new affordable homes come to the market each year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the rare areas of bipartisan consensus in the US right now is taking a tough line on China. We saw President Trump put tariffs on Chinese goods, and the Biden administration has only added to them. A second Trump administration may add to them even further. Meanwhile, we're increasingly placing export restrictions on various technologies, such as semiconductors. Stephen Roach, the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and now a fellow at Yale Law School, foresees disaster from this. He sees an explosion of Sinophobia, with policymakers misreading China and ushering us into a new Cold War, where the risk of some kind of accidental conflict will inevitably rise. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about the current tensions, how they compare to the US-Japan trade tensions in the 1980s, and how things could go bad.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James van Geelen, founder of Citrini Research, scored big when he made his weight loss drug-related investments last year. He was also early into artificial intelligence investments, making bets on picks and shovels plays, like Nvidia. So what's interesting him right now? And how does a thematic investor grapple with uncertainty from things like the upcoming US election? We talk about the next stage of AI investing, constructing election-related portfolios, going long water, and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winning economist known for his groundbreaking work on information gaps and risk-taking in markets. But he's recently turned his attention to supply chains and how to make them more resilient in the face of shocks like the 2020 pandemic. In this episode, we discuss why companies often hesitate to maintain extra inventories — and why this tends to be the case even during stable economic periods. We talk about possible solutions to incentivize firms to invest in larger capacity buffers and promote better long-term economic practices. The conversation also touches on industrial policy, the role of international institutions in the global economy, and strategies to ensure that economic growth benefits everyone more fairly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Modern Monetary Theory has gained prominence over the last several years by offering an alternative view on the constraints to fiscal policy. The basic gist is that the size of the deficit is not per se problematic. What matters are real resource constraints, and that if government spending gets too high — or is spent in unproductive ways — then inflation can materialize as too much money collides with insufficient supply. Another argument that some MMT adherents make is that the conventional path to fighting inflation (higher interest rates by the Federal Reserve) can actually be inflationary, because the coupon payments made by the government to Treasury holders constitute a form of government spending or fiscal expansion. In this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Warren Mosler, the intellectual godfather of MMT, to explain the mechanisms at play and assess the current macro environment. Perhaps surprisingly, Mosler is concerned with the combination of high government debt loads, high deficits (which he characterizes as spending like a drunken sailor), and the orthodox approach the Fed is taking to fighting inflation. With debt as high as it is, the annual interest payments due to these rate hikes has gone up significantly, creating a situation that mainstream economists might call Fiscal Dominance. He explains how this environment is a recipe for consistently higher and sustained inflation in the years ahead.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lumber prices have tumbled dramatically in recent weeks, with benchmark futures falling about 20% in the past four months alone. What's more, this is happening at the height of the summer homebuilding season, when there should theoretically be lots of demand for construction materials. In this episode of Lots More, we speak to one of our favorite guests about what's going on in the lumber market right now, and what falling prices might say about this important part of the US economy. Stinson Dean is the founder and owner of Deacon Lumber and he talks to us about why prices are crashing, what he's seeing in the market right now, and how the current environment differs from 2020 and 2021, when lumber prices went parabolic and mills couldn't keep up with demand.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There aren't many advanced manufacturing success stories in Latin America. And globally, there aren't many companies that can build commercial planes at scale. Yet somehow, one of the world's leading jet makers is Brazilian. Embraer is the third largest maker of commercial planes worldwide after Boeing and Airbus. On this episode, we talk about how the company came to be, what its opportunities are, and what lessons in economic development we can learn from its rise. We speak with two guests for the show. First, is Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, to understand the company's role in the aviation ecosystem. Then we speak with Juan David Rojas, a writer on Latin America, to understand the political conditions in Brazilian history that allowed the company to emerge and thrive.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brad Jacobs has made a career of starting, consolidating, and growing whole industries. He did a trucking company. He did a warehouse company. He has a freight brokerage. He created an equipment rental company. His new venture, dubbed QXO, aims to reshape the big and sprawling market for building supplies, which can encompass residential, infrastructure and commercial real estate. And he has $4.5 billion of his and his investors' money to go out and buy and build. In this special episode of the Odd Lots podcast, recorded live at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York City, he talks about where he is in the new process, and what he plans to do once he's made his acquisitions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Does it feel to you like society has gone crazy? Well, you're not alone. There's a general view that all around the world, in the realms of politics, culture, business, and so forth, a lot of people are losing their minds. So if this is true, what's the reason for it? On this episode we speak with Dan Davies, the author of the new book The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - And How The World Lost Its Mind. Dan talks about the field of study known as cybernetics, and the inevitable outcomes of systems that grow more and more complex. This complexity -- which describes many things in the modern world, and leads to what Dan calls "accountability sinks," or entities that basically exist just to be blamed for things that have gone wrong. Dan walks us through how these emerged in the modern world, where things are headed, and how the trend could theoretically be reversed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil Dutta, the top economist over at Renaissance Macro, has generally been sunny and optimistic about the economy over the last four years or so. But now he's warning of a possible mistake by the Federal Reserve. In his view, the central bank is waiting too long to get confirmation that inflation is coming back to target. Meanwhile, unemployment is starting to creep up in a meaningful way. As he sees it, if you're still worried about upside risk to inflation at this point, you need to have a theory about where that inflation is going to come from — and it's really hard to come up with an answer for that right now, given the general downward momentum in hiring and the overall economy. In this episode of Lots More, we catch up with Neil to talk about the risk that the Fed will blow the soft landing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From cars to toys to clothes, we're just used to seeing the label "Made In China" on all sorts of things. But how did China become a go-to destination for manufactured goods in the first place? Who actually recognized that there was a huge opportunity to tap the abundant, low-cost labor to sell goods to Western consumers? On this episode of the podcast we speak with Elizabeth Ingleson, a professor at the London School of Economics and the author of the book Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade. Ingleson traces the roots of the US-China trade relationship to a handful of US entrepreneurs in the early 1970s who first went into the country and recognized its opportunity as an export powerhouse. We discuss who these individuals were, the obstacles they had to overcome, and how they reshaped the entire global economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The stock market has had a torrid run in 2024 despite the fact that interest rate cuts haven't materialized in the way people had expected at the start of the year. In fact, outside of a few blips here and there (like spring 2020), US stocks have been phenomenal performers for years. Tom Lee, the founder of Fundstrat and FS Insight has been bullish for a long time, having caught the correct side of this lengthy trend. On this episode, we speak to the former JPMorgan strategist about how he thinks about the market, what he sees happening right now in macro and demographic trends, and why he thinks it’s plausible that the market could roughly triple in the next six years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everyone knows that the AI boom is built upon the voracious consumption of chips (largely sold by Nvidia) and electricity. And while the legacy cloud operators, like Amazon or Microsoft, are in this space, the nature of the computing shift is opening up new space for new players in the market. One of the hottest companies is CoreWeave, a company backed in part by Nvidia, which has grown its datacenter business massively. So how does their business actually work? How do they get energy? Where do they locate operations? How are they financed? What's the difference between a cloud AI and a legacy cloud? On this episode, we speak with CoreWeave's Chief Strategy Officer Brian Venturo about what it takes to build out operations at this scale.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Virtually everyone, across the ideological spectrum, has the view right now that it's too hard to build things (or get things done generally) in America. New infrastructure is thwarted by red tape and permitting. New housing is thwarted by YIMBYism. Even something that doesn't require much new construction -- like NYC's attempt to impose congestion pricing -- is difficult to get done after years and years of wrangling. What is the core problem? And what can be done to address it? On this episode, we speak with John Arnold, who started his career as an energy trader at Enron, before going on to found a highly successful energy hedge fund. Now in his role as the co-founder of Arnold Ventures, he works on policy solutions to address these key bottlenecks. We discuss how he goes about philanthropy to affect policy change, the problems he's identified, and what solutions could be put in place to improve domestic development.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Throughout history, financial markets have struggled with the issue of borders. Borders create friction, add cost and cause headaches for anyone who wants to spend money across them. On top of that, various national currencies can be wildly unstable. Could a borderless, global currency ease friction and enhance financial inclusion and stability around the world? Cryptocurrencies offer an intriguing possible solution to money’s border problem. And a particular kind of cryptocurrency, called stablecoins, could become a powerful medium of exchange for international payments - and offer people around the world increased economic freedom. This episode is sponsored by Coinbase. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For much of this year, the S&P 500 has marched steadily higher while measures of stock market volatility, like the VIX, have stayed pretty low. But looking at the headline index only tells you part of the story. Beneath the surface of the S&P 500, individual stocks have been moving up and down a lot. And of course, traders have figured out a way to make money on the difference between the quiet overall index and all that volatility happening in individual stocks. This is the dispersion trade that's gotten quite a bit of attention in recent months. But figuring out exactly who's doing it and how pervasive it is isn't that easy. In this episode, we speak with Michael Purves, CEO and founder of Tallbacken Capital Advisors, and Josh Silva, managing partner and CIO at Passaic Partners, about this new volatility trade and what it means for the overall stock market.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A few lucky people have made generational wealth trading the ups and downs of the crypto market. And some finance professionals have shifted gears to focus primarily on the space. But what is it like to actually trade these coins day-to-day? How do people pick which ones to buy? How do they analyze the coins themselves? How do they get reliable information? And what is it like, emotionally, to trade such an infamously volatile asset? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Julian Malinak. In his day job, Julian works in healthcare tech. But the rest of the time, he's looking on message boards for the next 100-bagger. At one point he had made enough to retire on. And then it all went poof. But he keeps grinding and trying to improve his craft. Julian — who we found on the Odd Lots Discord server — explains what he does all day, and how the market really works from a trading perspective. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's been a huge change in the market for nickel, which goes into everything from electric vehicles to steel. Indonesia has grown to absolutely dominate production and now provides more than 55% of the world's supply. A lot of that is going to China, which has partnered with Indonesia to help grow its nickel industry at a phenomenal rate. Now, there are accusations that low-grade and low-priced Indonesian nickel is flooding the global market, to the detriment of other producers. Western miners like BHP and Anglo American have been shuttering their own nickel operations, and have written them down by billions of dollars in recent years. On this episode, we speak with Michael Widmer, head of metals research at Bank of America, about the sea change that's taken place in the world's nickel market and what it says about the green energy transition, as well as the scramble for other strategically important metals. We also talk about all those bullish calls on copper, and general volatility in the metals space.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The company that Elon Musk is most known for, obviously, is Tesla. It's been extraordinarily successful and made him one of the richest people in the world. But his true love may be SpaceX, the rocket company whose technology may one day be used in getting humans to Mars. But even if interplanetary trips are a long way off, there's no historical precedent for the sheer scale of the outer space dominance that Elon Musk has built out. Between his rockets and his satellite-based internet company Starlink, no one individual has ever completely dominated outer space this way. So where are these businesses going and how do they fit into the Elon empire? On this episode, we speak to three of our Bloomberg colleagues who have covered Musk and his businesses. First, we talk about the history and science of rockets with Bloomberg News reporter Ashlee Vance, the author of the book, When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach. Then we speak with Dana Hull and Max Chafkin, two of the hosts of Bloomberg's Elon Inc. podcast, about Musk's broader constellation of companies and how they all fit together.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The rise of GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic, is a potentially existential threat to the makers of salty, sugary, high-calorie snack foods. But it's obvious that the gigantic food industry will search out ways to adapt. So what types of new products will they sell? How will they be flavored? How will they be packaged and marketed? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Barb Stuckey. She is the chief innovation and marketing officer at Mattson, a San Francisco Bay Area company that helps food producers find the next big flavor. Her team recently undertook a big study of Ozempic users to get a better understanding of how it changed their diets. She speaks to us about what they learned, what new types of products are in development, and how food manufacturers find the next big thing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kyla Scanlon has a great way of identifying the economic vibes, building up a massive TikTok following with videos about the Federal Reserve, inflation, markets, and more. She also coined the viral term 'vibecession' to describe the mood of many Americans who haven't been feeling the economic growth shown in official figures. In this episode of Lots More, we catch up with the Bloomberg Opinion contributor on what the vibes are right now, what resonates on social media when it comes to economic coverage, and her new book, In This Economy? How Money and Markets Really Work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year was a bad one for the US wind power industry, with lots of cancelled projects, writedowns, and an overall reassessment of how the math behind these mega projects might shake out in an era of higher interest rates and supply chain disruptions. But despite all of that, renewable power from wind is still a big part of America's plans to transition towards cleaner energy, with billions of government dollars earmarked to help build out capacity. So what went wrong last year and how is the industry looking now? On this episode, we speak with David Hardy, CEO of the Americas for Orsted, one of the biggest players in wind power. He talks about recent challenges, the potential implications of another Trump presidency, as well as when we might see subsidy-free onshore wind projects in the US.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's the price of a hamburger? Well, it depends. Are you making the purchase on the spot? Did you order ahead using an app? Are you a frequent customer of the burger chain? With inflation having surged at the fastest rate in roughly four decades, there's suddenly a lot more interest in how companies figure out the most that they can charge you for a given purchase at that moment in time. As it turns out, much of the economy is becoming like the airline industry, where there is no one price for a good, but rather a complex range of factors that go into what you're willing to pay. Thanks to algorithms, apps, personalized data, and a bevy of ancillary revenues, companies are increasingly learning how to not leave any pennies on the table. So how did this come about? What exactly is happening? And when did everything become gamified? On this episode we speak with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, and David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect. The two of them have put together a special episode of the magazine that's all about the world of pricing strategies, the tools companies use, and the industries that exist to help companies figure out what they can charge. We discuss what they learned and the impact this is having on the economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the past two weeks, two New York City office buildings have become major talking points in the market for commercial real estate. Troubles at 1740 Broadway led to the first loss in the AAA-rated tranche of a commercial mortgage bond since the financial crisis. Meanwhile, issues at 1440 Broadway recently propelled the serious delinquency rate for office loans to its highest level since early 2007. So what do these two properties tell us about the outlook for commercial real estate, and how these deals work? On this episode of Lots More, we bring back Hiten Samtani, founder of ten31 Media, to talk about the future of these buildings, as well as their storied history.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The modern electricity grid is a weird thing. The delivery of electricity is a natural monopoly, for kind of obvious reasons. Despite that, we still attempt to shoehorn market-based mechanisms into the system. Many utilities are shareholder-owned, yet heavily regulated. In many markets around the country, producers of natural gas, wind, coal, nuclear, solar and so on, compete to sell their electricity into the grid. Now that we're looking for ways to decarbonize the grid, we're running headlong into complications and perverse outcomes of what we've built. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Matt Huber, a professor at Syracuse University, and Fred Stafford, a pseudonymous writer who talks about energy markets, grid history, and nuclear power. We talk to them about how we got the current grid, and why nuclear energy in particular is squeezed out of existing markets.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The cost of solar has been plunging for years. Everyday there's a new headline about growing installation of renewables or batteries, or some other sign of progress when it comes to decarbonization. But there's still a long way to go and, in the meantime, the US continues to add new fossil fuel generation. So is there something wrong with the mechanisms we're using to change our energy mix? On this episode, we're speaking with Brett Christophers. He's a professor at Uppsala University and the author of the new book The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save The Planet. His basic argument is that using market-based mechanisms will conflict with the imperative to clean the grid and that the incentives aren't aligned for both goals. We discuss the economics of clean energy production, and why they don't lend themselves to a rapid buildout.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The gambling industry in the US has exploded in recent years, and suffused every aspect of sports consumption. You can bet on who will win or lose just about any game in the world from your phone. In fact, you don't even have to just bet on games. You can bet on how many home runs a player will hit, or how many sets it will take to complete a given tennis match. So how does it all work? Who is setting the lines? Can a user actually make money? And how do the sportsbooks make money? On this episode, we speak with Isaac Rose-Berman, a professional sports gambler and author of the How Gambling Works newsletter. He talks about the tactics he uses to make money, and also how the betting sites make money from their users. We discuss market structure, the societal impact of the gambling boom, and what types of regulations might best curb the more harmful aspects of the industry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remember GameStop? The poster-child for 2021's memestock mania recently surged almost 5x in a matter of days — and it was all catalyzed by a few tweets from Keith Gill, aka "Roaring Kitty." So what's going on? How similar and how different was this move to what captivated the world's attention three years ago? On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Luke Kawa, markets editor at Sherwood Media, who was one of the first to chronicle the world of WallStreetBets and memestocks for Bloomberg News. He breaks down what we just saw and the lessons we can take away from it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have taken an invigorated approach to antitrust under the Biden administration, targeting companies for labor issues like non-competes, in addition to looking at more traditional measures of anti-competitive behavior, like higher pricing. But how does an economist examine the impact of monopoly practices on the overall economy, or take into account new and different measures of their effects? In this episode, we speak with Ioana Marinescu, principle economist at the DOJ's Antitrust Division, about how she analyzes these thorny issues and what she's learned from specific recent cases, like Activision/Overwatch League, or Penguin Random House’s attempted acquisition of Simon & Schuster.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re taking The Big Take to Asia. Each week, Bloomberg’s Oanh Ha tells a story from the home of the world's most dynamic economies - and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive the ever-shifting region. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Multi-strategy hedge funds are all the rage right now. But there's also a lot of confusion about what exactly they do, and how the the so-called "pod shops" differ from more traditional hedge funds. In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Giuseppe 'Gappy' Paleologo, a long-time veteran of the space. In addition to writing books about quantitative finance, Gappy was director of risk and quantitative analysis at Citadel and head of enterprise risk at Millennium, among many other jobs. He walks us through what multi-strat traders actually do all day, what makes for a good multi-strat candidate, and how to win in the pod shop game.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Copper has long been touted as a big winner from the world's drive towards electrification. All those electric vehicles and new grids need lots of the metal to work. At the same time, since it takes years for new copper mining capacity to actually come on stream, many people expect a long-term shortage of the metal to materialize. But despite all that excitement, copper prices actually fell over the past few years. Now, copper bulls are getting another chance as the metal surges towards a new record. So why didn't the thesis play out before? And what does the mismatch between short-term prices and long-term supply actually mean for the world? In this episode, we speak to Jeff Currie, a long-time copper bull and commodities veteran who's now at Carlyle Group. We talk to him about why copper is his highest-conviction trade ever, plus the outlook for oil and big changes in petrodollars.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pierre Andurand made his name trading oil and other energy-related assets, but wild swings in the price of cocoa have recently lured the founder of Andurand Capital Management into a new market. He bet on cocoa earlier this year and saw the trade pay off as the price of the beans surged to a record $12,000 a ton. Prices have since fallen back to around $7,800, but Andurand sees scope for further upside as extreme deficits in the building blocks of chocolate loom. In this episode, we talk about how he entered the cocoa market, how he formed his investment thesis, and potential interest in other soft commodities, like coffee and orange juice. We also talk about copper, where a similar story of structural shortages is now playing out in prices.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we'll get fresh inflation data in the US, which will inevitably feed into the Federal Reserve's future decisions to raise, hold or lower benchmark interest rates. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is preparing to announce new tariffs aimed at curbing Chinese imports in key industries, including electric vehicles, batteries and solar cells. On this episode, we speak to Odd Lots favorite Viktor Shvets. The Macquarie strategist has a way of threading the needle between major global events and reaching back into history to provide context for our current macroeconomic moment. He describes the US central bank as a prisoner of its own policies, namely data dependency and the "dot plot." Meanwhile, China faces "massive" overcapacity problems as more and more countries put up barriers to its exports. We also talk about generational shifts and what they mean for investment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a lot going on in currency markets and global trade at the moment. The Japanese yen has been falling, even after authorities seemed to intervene to try to arrest the slide. Meanwhile, weakness in the Chinese yuan has helped boost that country's exports and is fueling talk of a new "China Shock" for the rest of the world, even as its economy continues to grapple with slower economic growth and excess capacity. In this episode of Lots More, we bring back Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, to walk us through these developments, along with his new paper, "Power and Financial Interdependence." We also talk about what China's excavator exports can tell us about its economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hugh Hendry says the world is brimming with risks right now, from Chinese deflation, to the strength of the US dollar, to unrealized losses in US Treasuries held by the bank. In the new episode of the podcast, we speak with the former manager of the Eclectica hedge fund, who now writes and operates under the Acid Capitalist branding. Hendry, who now resides in St. Bart's, says that the most important story in the world, and for as long as he's been in markets, has been the rise of China, which he sees as inflating asset values all around the world. Specifically, he sees a broken model, in which the country's GDP grows rapidly, but domestic investments and household income don't keep up. He warns of a risk of a yuan devaluation, as the country seeks to maintain its export drive which, he warns would create "Mad Max" deflation. He also talks about the "terrifying" drop in the Japanese yen, and the unusual situation by which the US is one of the world's growth leaders. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve has a lot of official statistics it can look at to try and gauge the state of the overall economy. But there's also room for incorporating on-the-ground anecdotes and real-time color. When it comes to collecting this kind of information, Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin might be the biggest road warrior on the FOMC. In mid-April, Odd Lots tagged alongside Barkin as he undertook one of his many trips around his district, speaking to local businesses about what they're seeing in terms of inflation, consumer demand, and the labor market. We traveled with him to North Carolina, making stops in Mount Airy, Winston-Salem and Yadkinville, to better understand what it is that a regional Fed president actually does when he's collecting info on the ground, and how it informs his thinking. It's a rare inside look at the day-to-day work of a Fed president. In this episode, you'll learn what kind of questions Barkin is asking businesses. And you'll learn about some local businesses themselves — everything from carport manufacturing to producing thermal underwear to spinning yarn. We also take a look at some of the big picture challenges facing America's smaller towns, including shrinking populations, a shortage of housing, and the scarcity of essential services like childcare.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2022, Congress passed the CHIPS Act, which set aside tens of billions of dollars in loans and grants in order to encourage companies to build new semiconductor fabs in the United States. We're still very early in the process. It's going to be a long time before we know if the US will become a major player again in the production of advanced chips. But the process is well underway and the bulk of the awards have been officially announced, with much of the money going to Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and others. So how did the grants get allocated — and what's next? On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Bloomberg News reporter Mackenzie Hawkins on the latest developments.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Breakthroughs in generative AI have created enormous opportunities for humans to learn from computers. We can use them to explain the news, understand historical concepts, fix our coding errors, and so forth. But of course, AI also has to learn from human. The technology digests enormous amounts of written text, and often relies on human feedback to calibrate its models. Luis von Ahn has been at the forefront of these back and forth interactions for years. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of Duolingo, the language learning app, but prior to that, he was one of the original developers of CAPTCHAs, the little puzzles you solve to log into websites and prove that you're a human. And of course, in the process of proving your humanity, you're also training computers to get better at identifying red lights, cross walks, bicycles and wavy letters. On this episode, we discuss the history of his work, the future of CAPTCHAs, the success of Duolingo and how he is using today's advanced AI models in aid of language learnings.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the past, the most expensive housing in any major city would be connected in some way to the economics of the city itself. If the general market was weak, the high end was also weak. If the general market was strong, then the high end was strong. But increasingly in cities like NYC, Aspen, Dubai, Miami, and elsewhere, the ultra high end exists in a different market, where the rich splash around money at levels which are completely disconnected from the local environment. At these levels, the ultra-wealthy are engaging in a global game of one-upmanship, where a higher price tag, perversely, can make a given property even more tantalizing. On this episode we speak with Hiten Samtani, founder of ten31 Media, which focuses on real estate, about how this market has developed. We talk through the deals, brokers, the buyers, and the general economics of this ultra-premium tier. We also discuss the rise of branded condos -- or those with the Mercedes or Porsche imprimatur -- and how they're reshaping the real estate landscape.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When most investors think of due diligence, they think of sifting through years of financial statements and crunching numbers to better understand a company's potential. Not many people think about interrogating senior executives and employees, and asking the right questions to figure out whether they're telling the truth about the business model. In this episode, we speak with Phil 'Dick' Houston, a veteran CIA officer who's been called the human lie detector. Phil literally wrote the book on how to spot lies, and has been a long-time collaborator of entrepreneur and serial acquirer Brad Jacobs, helping him with due diligence on both senior hires and potential investments. In this episode, Phil explains his strategy for identifying deceptive behavior and how it can be applied to the corporate world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 AI is all the rage right now. There are billions of dollars now flowing into the space, with large and small companies all competing to create the next big thing. But in addition to lots of money, building new AI models requires top-tier researchers. So, who's attracting the best? And what does it take to be considered top talent in AI anyway? On this episode we speak with Damien Ma, managing director at MacroPolo, the in-house think tank of the Paulson Institute. Damien helps put together MacroPolo's Global AI Talent Tracker, which monitors the flow of top-tier AI researchers around the world. We discuss who's winning the AI talent war so far, the purported talent drain in China, competition from India, and much more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the last year or so, probably every venture capitalist has become interested in artificial intelligence. So people are still figuring out what types of business models actually work, and who will end up making money in the space. Josh Wolfe has been at it for a long time. As a co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital, he's been involved in a number of deals in the space, and is already looking at what's next after the wave of excitement for chatbots since ChatGPT was released. On this episode, we talk to Josh about what he's excited about right now, including robotics, biotech, and maintenance. He tells us that just as ChatGPT opened everyone's eyes to the power of chatbots, a similar moment is coming in the robotics space.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the end of 2023, there was a lot of optimism that the US economy was on that glide path to a soft landing. But at least in the first quarter of this year, inflation has come in hotter than expected. So is this just a speedbump on the way back down to 2%? Or is this a new trajectory for inflation that will make the Federal Reserve rethink its existing approach? On this bonus episode of Odd Lots, we caught up with Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin in Mount Airy, North Carolina, to get his assessment of the latest data, and what it means for policy. He explains why he thinks policy is still restrictive, and why he doesn’t see evidence yet of overheating demand.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On June 2, 2024, Mexicans will go to the polls to elect a successor to current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. His chosen successor, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is the odds-on favorite. But what is AMLO’s legacy exactly? In some sense, economic growth under his administration has been robust. On the other hand, there’s been very little progress on domestic security. He also leaves a legacy of massive spending routed through the military, whose fruits are still undetermined. On this episode, we speak with Bloomberg News reporter Andrea Navarro, who has dug deep into how AMLO has conducted economic policy, his approach to industrial and fiscal policy, and whether Mexico is now in a position to ride the ongoing wave of trade with the US and the nearshoring of international supply chains.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the last few years, users of the popular ADHD drug Adderall have been frustrated by regular shortages in getting their prescriptions filled. Various regulatory and supply chain factors have contributed to the inability of producers to keep up with demand. But this raises the question: why is there so much demand in the first place? How did a significant chunk of the labor force -- from tech workers to Wall Streeters -- begin using the drug as an aid for their work and everyday lives? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Danielle Carr, an assistant professor at the Institute for Society and Genetics at UCLA, who studies the history of politics of neuroscience and psychology. We discuss the history of this medicine and related medicines, what it does for the people who take it, and how market forces opened the drug up to almost anyone.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years and years, utilities in the US haven't seen much growth in electricity demand. The economy is generally mature and has been able to grow even without needing much more electrical power. But all that's changing now and a big contributing factor is the boom in datacenter demand. It's particularly acute for AI datacenters, which need more power than traditional datacenters, and are growing like crazy ever since ChatGPT brought generative AI to everyone's collective consciousness. So how will utilities handle the sudden surge in load growth? On this episode, we speak with Brian Janous, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Brian spent 12 years at Microsoft, where he was the company's first ever energy-focused hire, so he has seen the rise of datacenter electricity consumption first hand, and how AI is kicking it up even further. He now works alongside utilities to figure out how they'll meet this growing demand. We talk about how there's likely to be more gas plants being built, how datacenters and utilities can get more energy out of existing infrastructure, the politics of AI datacenters, and what this all means for the net-zero commitments of major tech companies.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The audio companion to Bloomberg Opinion’s beloved Money Stuff column hosted by its author Matt Levine, “whose deadpan style mixes technical elucidation and wit” (NY Times). Once a week, Matt and his friend, Bloomberg News reporter and TV host, Katie Greifeld talk about Wall Street, finance and…other stuff. New episodes every Friday. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2021 and 2022, the US economy experienced historic shortages of many different goods. All kinds of consumer, construction, and high-tech components were tough to come by. Since then, most of these shortages have eased or gone away, but there is one category that is still struggling to meet demand: electrical components. Years after the height of the pandemic squeeze, there are still complaints about missing transformers and switchgears, which are crucial for connecting new construction developments to the power grid. So what's going on and how much is this shortage messing up economic activity? On this episode, we speak with commercial real estate developer Chris Hatch, partner at Forza Development, about how the situation is hurting his business. He talks about projects that are entirely finished — except for this one necessary component. We walk through the causes of the problem and how costly the delays are proving to be.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 A bunch of companies saw their share prices boom during the pandemic. Peloton surged because no one could go to gyms. Zoom jumped because no one could go to the office, and so on. Since then, many of these companies have come crashing down back down to earth. However, one pandemic winner that has yet to see its stock price mean-revert is Tractor Supply Co. Its shares have been up about 270% since their 2020 lows. The retailer has ridden a demographic and cultural shift as more Millennials move away from cities and decide to become hobby farmers growing their own chickens, vegetables, and fruit. In this episode, we speak with CEO Hal Lawton about the Tractor Supply business model, including how it's bucked the post-pandemic pattern and what it's doing to lock in customers for the long term.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US imports from Mexico are surging. Former President Trump's tariffs on China, as well as the renegotiated USMCA treaty, have encouraged supply chains to move to North America. Then Covid hit, and that re-energized interest in "nearshoring" or "friendshoring" as an alternative to China. So how much further can US-Mexico trade go? What kinds of goods are being imported from Mexico? And how does the trade boom interact with Mexico's shaky security situation? On this episode we speak with Matt Silver, the CEO and co-founder of Cargado, which is building technology to facilitate cross-border freight. Silver, a former freight broker with a long history of doing business in Mexico, talks to us about what he's seeing on the ground, who's investing, plus the extraordinarily complicated process of getting goods across the border.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Steve Eisman became a famous name in the investing world due to his prescient bet against the US housing market before 2008, which led to his starring role in Michael Lewis' book The Big Short. These days his investing approach looks a little bit more conventional in his role as a senior portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman. But he still has big ideas. These days he sees three dominant macro stories for investors: AI, infrastructure and crypto. The last one he just fundamentally rejects. The first two, however, he sees as tailwinds that can potentially last a long time. He's been looking for companies that can capitalize on trends like nearshoring, the Inflation Reduction Act, and power-hungry datacenters. In this episode show, we he discusses where we are in this big cycle. He also tells us about his love of comic books, and what he sees as the core problem with the Marvel franchise. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Savita Subramanian, head of US equity strategy at Bank of America, raised her outlook for stocks at the end of last year, there was a lot of skepticism that equities could go any higher. The S&P 500 had already surged on expectations that the Federal Reserve would start cutting rates in 2024. And investors were very excited about AI. Then, in early March, she increased her year-end target for the S&P 500 even further, going from 5,000 to 5,400. Fast forward to the start of April, and the rally has continued even as markets ratcheted down their expectations for rate cuts this year. Of course, there are questions about whether investors are getting ahead of themselves and whether things are starting to feel a little frothy. In this episode, Subramanian explains why she thinks stocks can go up even further from here, how she's thinking about valuations, and why we shouldn't be too worried just yet about a repeat of the early 2000s internet bubble.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to the collapse in office real estate, there's a lot of focus on who owns the debt, and what kind of pain must eventually be realized by someone. But there may be an even deeper challenge for big cities like New York or San Francisco. Office buildings, and the various restaurants and shops that cater to daily workers, are big contributors to the tax base of many cities. What happens if that goes into decline? In theory, you can get a doom loop of population loss leading to lower activity, leading to lower taxes, leading to lower spending, leading to worse public service, leading to more population loss and on and on it goes. So is that still a risk in 2024? On this episode we speak with Arpit Gupta, associate professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, who has been tracking this risk for awhile. He gives an update on where things stand and why some of the pain may still be possible in the future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The cost of cocoa beans has surged to a record $10,000 per metric ton. That's expected to make chocolate more expensive for millions of confectionary fans around the world. But why have prices more than doubled in the past few months alone? And what could halt the surge? We speak with Bloomberg Opinion columnist and Odd Lots favorite Javier Blas. He describes how a combination of chronic underinvestment in cocoa supply has run head first into financial markets to squeeze prices higher.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Walk into a grocery store today and there are seemingly endless shelves of product to choose from. But behind all those different options are a handful of agricultural giants that have grown to dominate the food industry. Companies like Walmart and Cargill are well-known at this point, but there are also dominant players in everything from berries to dairy to pig farming. In this episode, we speak with Austin Frerick, an antitrust and agricultural expert. His new book, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry, details the behemoths behind American agriculture and how they got so big. He talks about the choices that went into our current agricultural system, the impact of all that concentration, and what can be done to change it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On March 26th, a massive container ship called the Dali ploughed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major overpass just outside the city's port. The collision caused the bridge to dramatically collapse, sparked a search and rescue mission for survivors. It also cut off a busy shipping lane in and out of the Port of Baltimore. So what do we know about the collision? And what could the impacts of the latest maritime disaster actually be? On this emergency episode of Odd Lots, we speak to Sal Mercogliano, a professor at Campbell University and the host of the What Is Going On With Shipping? show on YouTube, about what we know so far.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Big Take from Bloomberg News brings you inside what’s shaping the world's economies with the smartest and most informed business reporters around the world. The context you need on the stories that can move markets. Every afternoon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI is an incredibly exciting space, provoking both great wonder and fear. One of the big worries obviously is: What will happen to everyone's job? Will it make more people's livelihoods obsolete, causing even greater inequality than we have now? On this episode, we speak with an economist who argues that this concern is not just misplaced, but exactly wrong. MIT's David Autor, famous for his work on the China shock, contends that the last 40 years of advances in computer technology have been a major driver of inequality, but AI should be seen as an entirely different paradigm. He argues that human work, aided by AI, will remove the premium captured by extremely high-paid, experienced professionals (like doctors or top lawyers) as their capabilities become more diffuse. He also discusses what policy choices the government should be making to improve the odds that AI will prove societally beneficial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, we spoke with Rich Hill, head of real estate strategy and research at Cohen & Steers, about where stress was building in the $20 trillion market for commercial real estate. Fast forward to today and the doomsday scenario in commercial real estate just hasn't played out like a lot of people thought it would. Defaults have increased, but they aren't disastrous. And some measures of CRE have even been rallying in recent months. So what's driving this surprising resilience? Hill sees it as a 'prisoner's dilemma' where lenders and borrowers have agreed to amend and extend loans in order to both benefit and buy some time. But how long can that continue? And what does the CRE market need to see in order to mount a durable recovery?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In recent years, we've seen home insurance premiums soar by historic amounts. Not only have prices gone up, but in some instances, we've seen national carriers simply announce that they're abandoning certain states. So, what's behind the mess? Why isn't competition causing markets to come into balance? What is the role of state insurance regulators? On this episode we speak with two guests who help us understand the problem. Amias Gerety is a partner at QED Investors, and a board member for the insurance company Kin. RJ Lehmann is the editor-in-chief for the International Center for Law & Economics. The two of them discuss insurance from both the financial side and the regulatory side. They explain where things have gone wrong and the prospects for market stabilization.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US took a number of extraordinary steps to cut Moscow out of the international financial system. The country immediately was hit with a slew of sanctions. It was cut off from the SWIFT payment system and it even had its dollar reserves seized. Prior to that, in 2021, the US took the rare step of seizing dollar reserves from Afghanistan's central bank after the Taliban's re-emergence to power. So how does the US control who gets to hold and transact in US dollars? Where did this power come from? What are the limits to the US policing of its own currency? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Bloomberg Senior Reporter Saleha Mohsin, author of the new book, Paper Soldiers: How the Weaponization of the Dollar Changed the World Order. We discuss the buildup of this tremendous financial power and also what it means for the dollar's status as a reserve currency going forward.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The United Arab Emirates recently unveiled a stunning $35 billion investment in Egypt, snapping up development rights in an area on the Mediterranean coast. The announcement has since paved the way for Egypt to float its currency, easing a currency crisis that's been going on for years now and paving the way for an even bigger bailout from the IMF. But why exactly is the UAE pumping roughly 7% of its GDP into Egypt? What does the deal say about politics in the Middle East region? And what does it mean for the flow of petrodollars — the vast amount of money generated by the Gulf's oil income — in the global financial system? On this episode, we speak to Ziad Daoud, chief emerging markets economist at Bloomberg Economics and the co-author of a new Bloomberg News Big Take about the UAE's huge investment. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks to the blockbuster musical, Alexander Hamilton has become a modern cultural icon. He's known as an architect of the federal system, building out a strong government with the capacity for both borrowing and spending. But there's another side of his vision that doesn't get as much attention, and that's his belief in the importance of state-directed investment to build out a domestic manufacturing industry. Basically, he was an early advocate for industrial policy. Given that the US is currently in a phase of building out domestic manufacturing capacity in various areas, it's time to go back and look at the history of these efforts in the US. We speak with Christian Parenti, a professor at John Jay College in New York, and the author of Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder, about this other side of Hamilton, and the economic context in which he developed this vision.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Want some Doritos? For years, you might have only been able to get one or two snack chip flavors. But right now on Amazon, you can find numerous varieties, from barbecue to nacho cheese, spicy sweet chili, or Late Night Loaded Taco. And this is really just scratching the surface. There are now dozens of flavors of Blue Diamond almonds, including blueberry, smokehouse, toasted coconut, sriracha, habanero BBQ, and wasabi and soy. So how did this happen? It turns out that some of it is a tech story. Thanks to breakthroughs in automation at both the plant and warehouse level, companies are able to create and ship more varieties than ever before. On this episode, we speak with Ryan Harlan, the director of business development at the E Tech Group, about the rapid changes in the industry over the last decade and how that turned into so many more consumer offerings.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The pharmaceutical space is characterized by extreme uncertainty. You never know what drugs are going to pan out. The lead time for development is extremely long. Market size is inherently unknowable. And the regulatory and pricing climate is constantly changing. So, how does a company decide where to invest its cash? On this episode, we speak with Moderna's chief financial officer, Jamey Mock, about how he views the problem. He explains the process by which the vaccine maker chooses which bets to make, how changing fortunes within the stock market affect corporate decision-making and the role of the government in accelerating progress and de-risking investment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Japanese stocks are suddenly soaring, with the Nikkei 225 hitting an all-time high this week after decades of languishing. Warren Buffett has been upping his stakes in Japanese companies and activist investors are taking an interest in the market for the first time in decades. And while all these dramatic headlines might seem to be coming out of nowhere, the road to Japan's big corporate comeback has arguably been years in the making. On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Travis Lundy, a Japan markets expert and special situations analyst who publishes on SmartKarma. He walks us through the history of Japan Inc. and how we got to this point. We discuss just how investor-friendly have Japanese companies actually become, what specific examples are we seeing of return-focused strategies, and what seems to be driving the change.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Go to any deli or 7-Eleven these days and you're sure to see a gigantic, technicolor wall of beverages. There are juices and sodas and CBD-infused beverages and caffeinated energy drinks as far as the eye can see. The wall just keeps getting larger. And whereas in the past you might just see Red Bull and Monster in the energy drink space, now there are numerous competitors, with a wide range of flavors and branding. So what does it take to stand out in this booming market? And how do you get your beverage on that gigantic wall? On this episode, we speak with John Fieldly, the CEO and president of Celsius Holdings, about how his company became the third largest energy drink company in the US. We discuss what it takes to succeed in terms of branding, packaging, distribution and shelf-space.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Deal, hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, features intimate conversations with business titans, sports champions and game-changing entrepreneurs who reveal their investment philosophies, pivotal career moves and the ones that got away. From Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals, The Deal is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Bloomberg Carplay, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch The Deal on Bloomberg Television, and Bloomberg Originals on YouTube.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're coming up to the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which sparked a fresh conversation about the role of banks in the wider economy. Last year's banking drama culminated in the Federal Reserve unveiling a new liquidity facility for lenders and the US government made bank customers whole even beyond the $250,000 limit on guaranteed deposit insurance. So what did we learn from the March banking crisis? And what could we be doing differently now? In this episode, we speak with Anat Admati, professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, about why bank bailouts (in all their different varieties) persist and what can be done about it. Anat became a major advocate of banking reform following the 2008 financial crisis, and has continued to lobby regulators and government officials for fundamental change. She discusses why banks are structurally disincentivized to behave like other types of companies, the impact of new capital requirements including the Basel Endgame proposal, and competition with other types of lenders including private credit.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is for the birds — and one bird in particular. Flaco, an Eurasian eagle-owl, escaped from the Central Park Zoo last year and went on to become a local celebrity, delighting New Yorkers with his feathered adventures across Manhattan. Late last month, however, Flaco died after an apparent collision with a building. Obviously, Flaco's death is a sad event for many reasons, but it got us thinking about the role of birds in the wider world. Not only are they an important part of the natural ecosystem, but they can also contribute to agriculture (or quality of life in the city) by eating bugs, rats and other pests. So can you put an exact dollar amount on the value of a bird and what it does for the world? It turns out that for many decades, some economists were devoted to exactly this question. In this episode, we speak with Robert Francis, the author of the Bird History Substack, about the largely forgotten science of economic ornithology and historic attempts to figure out exactly how much a bird is worth. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve has a goal of getting inflation down to 2%. But of course, there are a lot of different ways of measuring inflation. Many people know about the Consumer Price Index, and the various ways it can be sliced and diced. The Fed, however, focuses on a different index — Personal Consumption Expenditure — which differs from the CPI in a number of ways, both in terms of category weightings and methodological approaches. So why are there different measures of inflation? Why does the Fed prefer PCE? And how is PCE actually assembled? On this episode, we speak with Omair Sharif, founder and president of Inflation Insights, as well as Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America. We explore these two different measures, the approaches for calculating them, and the weird quirks underneath the surface that makes them all so interesting and controversial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 The hedge fund industry has gone through multiple evolutions. Investing styles go in and out of fashion as market conditions change. Strategies that work become crowded with investors, which can mean they stop working as well. The hottest thing these days are so-called multi-strategy funds or "pod shops" that employ multiple distinct teams, each with a specific mandate, style and edge. In theory, with good risk management and internal capital allocation, this can produce robust results across many cycles. So how do these funds work, how are they making money, and what does the expansive growth of this new style of fund mean for markets? In this episode, we speak with Krishna Kumar, a portfolio manager at Goose Hollow Capital Management, about the rise of multi-strategy hedge funds, why they're so popular, and how the increasing amount of money deployed by these firms is changing the way that markets trade.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you order something from Ukraine right now, be it a T-shirt or a vintage Christmas ornament, chances are it will arrive on time and in good shape. Not only is the country's mail service still operating, even as it grapples with an invasion by Russia, but the role of the post office has also changed. The mail has become a lifeline for Ukrainians who rely on it to receive pension payments, medicine, or to run online businesses as domestic jobs get disrupted. So how exactly is the Ukrainian mail system working right now? What operational and logistical changes has it had to make to keep going, and what does the service's future look like? In this episode, we speak with Igor Smelyansky, the CEO of Ukrposhta, about delivering the mail during a time of war.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Troubles at Boeing just keep piling up, along with existential questions about the company's future. Not only is Boeing enormously important to US manufacturing, but it's also a major defense contractor for the US government and a big employer, which means its fortunes are of interest to more than just shareholders. So just how bad are the difficulties facing Boeing at the moment and what is the planemaker planning to do about it? On this episode, we speak to Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, about Boeing's history and future. He talks about lesser-known developments at the company, including its recent decision to dissolve its firm-wide strategy unit, and the decisions that go into developing new aircraft.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The growth of electric vehicles has heightened concerns about China's current dominance in lithium-ion batteries. So as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the US government is spending money and providing tax credits to companies that are attempting to build up a domestic supply chain. So what are the real challenges to expanding America's battery-making capacity, both in terms of financing and operations? On this episode, we speak with Dr. Chris Burns, the founder and CEO of Novonix, a battery materials company with a focus on synthetic graphite manufacturing. He explains his company's role in the battery supply chain, the economics of domestic manufacturing, and how it employs the government's policy endeavors in its work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, Corbu managing director Samuel Rines came on Odd Lots to discuss what exactly companies were saying about why they were raising prices. His argument was that in the post-pandemic environment, with all its associated peculiarities and one-off disruptions, businesses were pursuing a strategy of "price over volume" (POV) to boost their profit margins. Since then, the idea of corporate profits contributing to inflation has gone viral, with the Biden administration repeatedly admonishing companies for price-gouging. In this episode of Lots More, we discuss the latest earnings season and what it's telling us about prices right now. Rines argues that the POV strategy is petering out in favor of companies maintaining prices and preserving margins ("Price and Margin") and even beginning to boost their volumes. We also talk about recent job cuts and layoff announcements.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A little less than a year ago, the US financial system was rocked by its first major banking drama since 2008. While the crisis was eventually contained, and only three lenders ended up collapsing, the experience re-ignited an ongoing conversation about the way we rescue troubled lenders. Not only did the Federal Reserve launch a new liquidity program called the Bank Term Funding Program as part of its support to the banking system in 2023, but regulators are now talking about changing existing facilities, including the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) and the discount window. For instance, Michael Hsu of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's has proposed that banks be required to tap the discount window and "pre-position" collateral at the facility, just in case they one day need it. In this episode, we speak with Steven Kelly, associate director of research at the Yale University Program on Financial Stability, about the constellation of existing emergency facilities for banks, how they've evolved over time, and the changes that could be made to them now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Back in 2016, Donald Trump campaigned on a platform that included a much harsher stance toward trade with China, and the US-China Trade War was a big deal while he was in office. But the Biden administration has quietly continued the Trump tariff regime and even enacted more stringent restrictions targeting China's use of technology, including on semiconductors. Now that Trump looks set to get the Republican presidential nomination again, he's suggesting even higher tariffs — of 60% or more — on Chinese goods. What effect would that actually have on the US economy and global trade? Would it lead to higher prices for Americans when the country is still struggling with inflation? Or would it result in a slowing of the economy that actually mutes prices? Would US domestic manufacturing ramp up to fill the gap? Or would we simply import more from other countries? In this episode, we speak with Tom Orlik, chief economist at Bloomberg Economics, and Mackenzie Hawkins, US industrial policy reporter for Bloomberg News, who have published an in-depth analysis of the impact of these potential tariffs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US oil production has surged to an all-time record of more than 13 million barrels produced per day. But where's all that crude actually going? And how is it being handled and stored? On this episode, we speak with Steven Barsamian, chief operating officer at the Tank Tiger, a clearing house for terminal storage, and co-host of the Tank Talk podcast, about the business of moving and storing oil and its related products. We talk about what storage capacity looks like right now, how it's changed over time, plus last year's diesel shortage in the Northeast. He also describes exactly how crude oil and refined products move from point A to point B, talks about the crud you find at the bottom of storage tanks, and explains why you should definitely not keep oil in the bathtub (or on your desk) to benefit from contango. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The last week saw a major plunge in shares of New York Community Bancorp after the company revealed challenges in its lending to multi-family residential developers. So what went wrong at this bank? And what does it say about this particular market? On this episode we speak with Quantierra CEO Ben Carlos Thypin, a New York City landlord and investor, about the bank's large role within NYC's rent-stabilized housing market. Over the last year, Ben has advised funds to short NYCB based on its exposure to this complex corner of real estate. He explains how NYCB's position, combined with market and regulatory changes to the city's housing market, contributed to the strains.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We know that companies think carefully about where they open stores. They might look at things like how many people pass by the location on a day-to-day basis or how easy it is to access the site by car. But what are the lesser known factors that go into deciding where to open a brick-and-mortar store? And how have these considerations changed over time? In this episode, we talk about the art of retail site selection. We speak with Tom McGee, CEO of the International Council of Shopping Centers, which annually hosts one of the biggest deal-making events connecting retailers and commercial real estate owners. Then, we drill down into a specific type of business: drive-thrus for coffee chains and fast food restaurants. We speak with Chris Hatch, partner at Forza Development.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, we've seen a wave of protests recently from angry farmers. So what's driving the activity? On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Lorcan Roche Kelly, a former cattle farmer in Western Ireland who is now the business editor at the Irish Farmers Journal. He explains how a combination of factors from climate obligations, economic conditions, government regulation, and free trade deals have put the squeeze on many farms, causing this public revolt. He explains the unique conditions facing each country, as well as broader political and economic ramifications.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Attacks on ships in the Red Sea continue to escalate. What started with narrow strikes by Yemeni-based Houthi militants against Israel-linked vessels has now expanded to ships carrying a wide range of freight, including oil and liquified natural gas. The US military has responded with strikes against Houthi targets, but so far they don't appear to have much of a deterring effect. Meanwhile shipping delays and costs — driven in part by anxious insurers — continue to worsen. To understand the challenge to global trade and how bad it could get, we speak with maritime historian Sal Mercogliano, a professor at Campbell University and the host of the What Is Going On With Shipping? show on YouTube. He discusses how shipping companies are making operational decisions in the area, how boat crews are coping, and how various international militaries are responding. He also talks about the broad history of the US Navy and its traditional role in securing international trading routes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a busy week for the bond market with a meeting of the Federal Reserve and the release of the US Treasury's quarterly refunding statement. While a lot of people have been focusing on when the Fed will cut benchmark interest rates, there's also an ongoing debate about how fast the central bank will shrink its balance sheet given last year's banking crisis and the recent drama in the repo market. In this episode, we speak with Mark Cabana, longtime rates strategist at Bank of America, about the big questions lurking behind the week's events. We talk about who will buy all the bonds the US is selling, what will happen to bank balance sheets as rates go down, and the impact of liquidity on the broader market.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's episode is a special edition of Bloomberg's Big Take DC podcast, featuring an interview with our own Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway. They spoke to Big Take host Saleha Mohsin of Bloomberg News, about how the US has managed to avoid a recession — and whether the Federal Reserve’s decisions were based on reliable data. It also features an interview with Claudia Sahm, an ex-Fed economist and contributor to Bloomberg Opinion. To hear more from Big Take DC, subscribe to their show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on Lots More, we speak with Claudia Sahm, the former Federal Reserve economist and founder of Sahm Consulting, about the recent uptick in the US unemployment rate. We discuss the implications for the Sahm Rule, the early recession indicator she discovered and which has been a hot topic since the most recent Nonfarm Payrolls report. We also talk about data challenges for economists, the prospect of recession, and dealing with online commenters.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are plenty of one-off risks at the moment, but it seems like betting on pretty much nothing happening is more popular than ever. Investors are increasingly reaching for a wide variety of derivatives to bet against volatility. Those derivatives include one- and zero-day options which expire in 24 hours or less, and have become a hot button topic on Wall Street. So what's the impact of this explosion in options trading? Why is it happening at a time when the possibility of major disruptions seems more likely than ever (even if realized volatility remains low)? And what impact could it have on the wider market? In this episode, we speak with Kris Sidial, Co-CIO of Ambrus Group, about the return of the short vol trade.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years, people have been talking about the end of US dollar dominance or how some other currency could usurp its role around the world. But when it comes to global finance and trade, the dollar is as dominant as ever. Given the size of China's economy, the renminbi is considered one potential challenger. And in fact, China is making real moves on this front. On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Zongyuan Zoe Liu, the Maurice R. Greenberg fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of a recent article on China's de-dollarization efforts. As she sees it, the rise of a new energy and commodity system — one that is breaking away from oil — creates the opportunity for markets that are denominated in something other than dollars. Meanwhile, China, having seen Russia get cut off from the dollar system, has an increased incentive to protect itself from a similar fate. We discuss the prospects of a major change and how China could benefit, as well as the risks. We also discuss the current state of Chinese macro.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The past few years have been pretty wild for anyone working in credit, the business of selling and trading corporate debt. First you had the pandemic, which changed working patterns across Wall Street. Then you had a surge in deal activity that had everyone working overtime to meet demand. Meanwhile, private credit's been booming and is now competing with banks' cash cow businesses of selling bonds and leveraged loans. And finally, everyone is wondering how long the credit space can withstand higher interest rates, and how frothy the underlying deals actually all. High Yield Harry, an anonymous social media account, has been chronicling it all -- making memes out of junk bond offerings, and cracking jokes about conversations with investment committees. In this episode, he talks about his experience working in both private and public credit, what it's like to run an anonymous FinTwit account, and the outlook for bonuses this year. High Yield Harry's voice is concealed in this episode to preserve anonymity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Right now, there's a lot of hope and optimism that the US economy is on a path towards a soft landing. Nonetheless, there are aspects of the current landscape that are unsettling. Inflation has come down, but there's significant debate as to why and how sustainable that move is. Geopolitics is another source of concern, given multiple ongoing conflicts. According to Jason Cummins, the chief economist and head of research at macro hedge fund Brevan Howard, we're currently seeing the demise of three different eras: the end of secular stagnation, the end of China's "get rich it all costs" era, and the end of "the end of history," as liberal democracy clashes with other competing frameworks. On this episode of the podcast, we talk about how these ideas are applied practically, in terms of trades, and also why he believes that recession is coming to the US economy in 2024.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Jan. 5, the plug door of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 blew out mid-flight, forcing the plane into an emergency landings with a large hole in fuselage. Miraculously, nobody was hurt or killed, but it could have been a disaster. And it was the latest in the persistent string of mechanical and engineering setbacks that have plagued Boeing over the last six years. Of course, the company went into crisis mode in late 2018 and early 2019 when two different 737 Max planes crashed, killing 346 people combined. So what's wrong with Boeing? It's a crucial question, since the company is arguably America's pre-eminent manufacturer and one of the only two dominant global players in commercial jets. On this episode we speak with Bloomberg investigative reporter Peter Robison, the author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. We discuss the company's problems, its history and culture, and how it lost its focus on safety and engineering in favor of a focus on pleasing shareholders.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early 2010s, US shale players were producing oil like crazy, with no concerns about profitability. Then the legs were kicked out from the industry, causing a massive bust and massive oversupply. In 2021 and 2022, it looked like a very different story. Oil prices were surging and it seemed as though US players had found religion, learning how to maintain production discipline and improve profitability. But now we're in a new era that nobody saw coming: US oil production is booming. In in fact, it's at a record high. What's more, industry participants are actually making money at the same time. So how did they do it? And how did the prognosticators get things wrong? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Bloomberg Opinion columnist and commodity specialist Javier Blas. We discuss the state of US supply and what it means for OPEC. We also talk about the rising tension in the Red Sea, as well as his reporting on the rise of electronic electricity trading in the European market.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan has become a top-of-mind concern in defense and corporate circles in recent years. But what would such an attack actually look like? And what would be the economic impact to world if it actually happened? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Jennifer Welch, chief geo-economics analyst at Bloomberg Economics and Gerard DiPippo, senior geo-economics analyst at Bloomberg Economics. Jennifer and Gerard, along with a larger team of Bloomberg economists and journalists, recently undertook a massive exercise to game out the potential impact to the global economy of a war in the Taiwan Strait — which they estimate to be around $10 trillion. That would be significantly larger than the biggest disruptions in recent memory, including the Covid pandemic and the global financial crisis, leaving virtually no part of the world unaffected. We discuss how they go about assessing the odds of each scenario and how they evaluate the possible impacts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For anyone interested in investing in the health-care space, JPMorgan's annual Health Care Conference has become one of the most important events of the year. We were not able to get to San Francisco this year, but one of our favorite Odd Lots guests, James van Geelen of CitriniResearch.com, was in attendance. He called into this week's episode of Lots More to tell us what the leading players in health care and medical technology are buzzing about right now — and he confirms that AI and GLP-1 weight loss drugs are at the top of everyone's mind."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Harley Bassman, a.k.a. the Convexity Maven, is a legend among bond investors. He worked at Merrill Lynch, where he invented the MOVE Index that measures bond market volatility, and then at Pimco. Now, after a dramatic year for US Treasuries that saw investors hit with massive amounts of volatility only for the 10-year yield to basically wind up where it was at the start of 2023, he sees things starting to get a bit more normal. With the Federal Reserve getting closer to its 2% inflation target, the yield curve is going to steepen after years of intense inversion, he says. Now a managing partner at Simplify Asset Management, Bassman also talks about his favorite trades for 2024, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's legacy, and how he chooses his famously esoteric chart colors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The mood about the US economy feels very different right now than it did a year ago. At the start of 2023, almost everyone seemed to be predicting recession. Right now, there is a high degree of optimism about the prospects of a soft landing. On this special episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Lael Brainard, the director of the White House's National Economic Council. We talk about the state of the recovery, why public frustration towards the economy remains high, and what further can be done by the Biden administration to address the high cost of living.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Private credit is now so big that it's rivaling more traditional forms of lending and fueling a debate about whether this relatively new asset class poses risks to the economy. And yet, it feels like a new private credit fund is being launched daily. And even banks (the very things private credit is displacing) are getting in on the act and creating their own private credit offerings for investors. In this episode, we speak with Ben Emons, senior portfolio manager at Newedge Wealth, about the macro impact of this new form of lending. He talks about where private credit's alpha actually comes from, how it stacks up against bank lending, and what to watch out for in terms of the risks it might pose to the broader system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A string of recent attacks by Yemen-based Houthi rebels on commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea to the Suez Canal have forced global shippers to once again shift how they transport goods. It's just the latest in a multi-year string of disruptions to global supply chains. It also comes just as pandemic-era supply chain stress seemed to be in the rearview mirror. So what is the geopolitical and economic impact of this latest disruption? In this episode, we speak with Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves, about the impact of the attacks. We also talk about the broader logistics landscape, including the rise and fall of digital freight brokerages, and the 2023 "bloodbath" for trucking firms.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's no secret that one of the fun things about Odd Lots is that it covers a lot of different topics, from the plumbing of the financial system to crimes in commodities to the ongoing impact of 100-year-old laws like the Jones Act. In this episode, Joe and Tracy collect their top 10 surprising and interesting insights gleaned from Odd Lots episodes this year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brad Jacobs has founded multiple multi-billion dollar companies in his career. He turned United Waste into part of a major trash collection conglomerate. United Rentals has been a massive winner in equipment rental for the construction industry. And XPO Logistics (which has spun out GXO and RXO) is a freight behemoth. Now, he's planning on doing it again. His new company, QXO, wants to be a billion-dollar player in the area of building products distribution. On this episode, we speak to Jacobs — who is the author of the new book, How To Make A Few Billion Dollars — about why he chose to go into this industry, his philosophy of building businesses, and how he plans to win in this space.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode, our listeners called in with their questions. They ranged from the personal, like "What happened with Tracy's coal?" to the editorial, such as "What are the big stories we want to be covering more?" Hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway are the ones who get interviewed in this special holiday episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This time last year, almost everyone was predicting a recession would engulf the US economy in 2023. One of those forecasters was was Anna Wong, chief US economist for Bloomberg Economics. In October of last year, her model of the US economy showed a 100% chance of a recession happening in 2023. But, here we are more than 12 months later and US economic data keeps coming in relatively strong. Unemployment remains near multi-decade lows and inflation is pretty close to the Federal Reserve's 2% target. Yet there are still some confusing signals about the economy's overall direction, including surveys showing that many people are extremely pessimistic in their economic outlook. In this episode, we speak with Anna about how she's thinking about the conflicting signals in the US economy, why recession didn't materialize in 2023 in the way many people thought it would, and what she's looking out for next year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg News Now is a comprehensive audio report on today's top stories. Listen for the latest news, whenever you want it, covering global business stories around the world.        on Apple: trib.al/Mx9TCh1     on Spotify: trib.al/T4BG8s4     Anywhere: trib.al/O4EX6BASee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people think of publicly funded housing, they tend not to think about modern-looking apartments with all kinds of amenities. But a county in Maryland is trying to completely reframe how we think about public housing. The Montgomery County Housing Authority has been a pioneer in thinking about what the government can do in terms of accelerating housing production, even when the private sector is pulling back due to higher rates. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Zachary Marks, Senior Vice President of Real Estate at the Housing Opportunities of Commission of Montgomery County along with Paul Williams, the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Enterprise, about what the county is doing, and how the model can be applied elsewhere to create more affordable, abundant housing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week was a huge one for the soft landing camp. The inflation data came in cool and the Federal Reserve indicated its confidence that it can begin monetary tightening fairly soon. Meanwhile, baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani signed a staggering $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers that comes with a highly unusual deal structure. To break it down, we talked with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Conor Sen about what it all means.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sweetgreen, the popular fast food salad restaurant, recently announced that it was eliminating all use of seed oils, in favor of higher quality oils such as avocado and olive oil. This is more costly, but the company sees it as worthwhile, given its reputation for high-quality ingredients, and growing public interest in oils. So how does a company like Sweetgreen decide what to sell? And how does it compete against the numerous other fast casual chains competing for lunchtime dollars. On this episode we speak with co-founder Nicolas Jammet about the company's strategy, how it deals with labor and commodity costs, and the future of the restaurant business. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the defining brands of the 2010s was Drybar. The popular chain of blow dry salons helped define the so-called experience economy, leading to numerous competitors and copycats. But of course, to go from a single location to a national chain is difficult in all kinds of ways, both personally and operationally. On this episode, we speak with Drybar founder Alli Webb on the experience, which she talks about in her new book titled 'The Messy Truth: How I Sold My Business for Millions but Almost Lost Myself'. We also discuss the truth about raising money, her new chain of massage studios, how to select the perfect retail location, and how operating a business is different in 2023 than it was 10 years ago. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Both the Trump administration and the Biden administration made moves to constrain China's ability to build out an advanced homegrown technology industry. But the country is still investing billions in its chip sector and there are signs that it's really starting to pay off. Huawei recently released the Mate 60 Pro smartphone, with capabilities that shocked the world in terms of its performance. So how is the country making such strides in face of technological trade restrictions? We spoke with Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis and Doug O'Loughlin of Fabricated Knowledge about how much progress China is making, and the policies that are accelerating these gains.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to commercial real estate, a lot of attention is obviously paid to offices. But it's not the only sector facing strains. Apartment buildings — or multifamily residential — may also be in for trouble. For years, rates were falling and rents were rising, and owning and operating apartments was a moneymaker. Then things went into overdrive with the pandemic, thanks to plunging rates, surging rents, and an explosion in new household formation. But all of that is reversing. Rates have surged. Insurance costs have surged. Operating costs have surged. The household formation boom didn't last. And in some areas of the country — particular in some Sun Belt markets — rents are actually falling. On this episode, we speak with Lee Everett, vice president of research and strategy at Waterton, on how a multi-family deal binge in 2021 will result in a huge hangover.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's been a lot of worry over the future of commercial real estate — especially the outlook for office buildings — in light of higher interest rates and the trend towards work from home. But years ago, Wall Street was worried about a different type of CRE: shopping malls. Back in the 2010s, loans backing malls were souring fast, as customers ordered more online and major anchor tenants (like Sears) shuttered their doors. There were sites such as Deadmalls.com that tracked closures around the country, complete with apocalyptic-looking photos of empty buildings. But of course, while the overall number of shopping malls in the US has dropped, not all of them disappeared. Some have even thrived. So what can the shopping mall experience tell us about the outlook for offices and the broader commercial real estate market? On this episode we speak with Liza Crawford, a long-time CRE veteran and trader of commercial mortgage-backed bonds, who's now co-head of securitized at asset manager TCW.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Argentina has always been interesting from an economic and financial markets perspective, to put it mildly. And it's gotten even more interesting following the recent election of Javier Milei as the country's next president. Milei, whose policies could be described as radically libertarian, has floated a bunch of new ideas including getting rid of the central bank and dollarizing Argentina's economy in order to finally put an end to rampant inflation. But how realistic is this path for a nation which has spent decades burning through loans from external creditors? This week on Lots More, we chat with Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, about why Argentina's issues persist and what options it has going forward.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The rate banks pay on savings accounts hit the headlines earlier this year, when an outflow of deposits contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and other lenders. Suddenly, the mechanics of how banks attract deposits — and what they actually do with them — became a hot topic. And even before then, there'd been a lot of discussion over why many banks hadn't passed on the surge in benchmark rates to their customers by raising rates on savings accounts. So what exactly do banks use deposits for? How do those deposits behave? And can that behavior change in different interest rate environments? In this episode we speak with Josh Younger, senior adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and formerly at JPMorgan, about his recent research looking at how banks pass on higher interest rates and what it means for their own exposure to interest rates.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last month, a Missouri jury found that real estate brokers colluded to artificially inflate and fix their own commissions, and as a result, ordered the National Association of Realtors to pay $1.8 billion in damages. While the ruling will be appealed, with highly uncertain damages and remedies, the case is shining a light on how participants in the real estate industry get paid, and raising the question of whether homebuyers are paying too much to their brokers. So how do brokers get paid? What are their incentives? And why haven't fees for brokers gone down, even as online platforms that compete with them have proliferated. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Andra Ghent, a finance professor at the University of Utah and a specialist in real estate who explains how the structure works currently, and how the lawsuit could ultimately change the entire business model of buying and selling homes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Going into 2023, the conventional wisdom was that a recession was likely in store. Instead, it didn't happen. What we saw is continued disinflation, even as the economic growth and the labor market have remained robust. Now going into 2024, there's growing optimism that a soft landing can be achieved. Stocks have been rallying, rates have been falling, and there's a widespread view that the Fed is done hiking. So will this come to pass? On this episode, we speak to Jan Hatzius, the top economist at Goldman Sachs, about why so many people got 2023 wrong, and why he believes the soft landing is now within reach.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Since bursting onto the scene in the mid-1990s, Magic the Gathering has become one of the most popular games of all time, with millions of players collecting cards to battle each other in an imaginary fantasy realm. But Magic's early success came with a problem: the price of the game's most powerful and rare cards surged along with its popularity. Eventually, Magic's creators worried that the game would become too expensive and was at risk of becoming a short-lived fad. So, how do you pop a bubble in collectibles without completely alienating collectors? In this episode, we speak with Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic the Gathering, and Arka Ray, a long-time game developer at Microsoft who's now CEO of Richard's new gaming studio, Popularium. They talk about the surprising parallels between MTG and central banking, what they've learned from Magic, and how they're applying those lessons to Chaos Agents, Popularium's first new gaming launch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The effort to decarbonize the US electricity grid involves a range of technologies and power sources. Solar is part of the solution, nuclear may also be a component. Battery storage is key. And so is wind — both onshore and offshore. While there are challenges throughout the process, the offshore wind industry in particular has seen a number of setbacks lately, with the Danish company Orsted having recently made headlines for pulling out of a project slated to be built off the coast of New Jersey. Challenges range from surging commodity costs to a scarcity of vessels, the bidding process for deals, and of course, the surge in interest rates over the last two years. On this episode, we speak with Chelsea Jean-Michel, an offshore wind industry analyst at BloombergNEF, to get a clear breakdown of the problems, the degree to which these challenges threaten the larger trajectory of the industry, and the efforts to decarbonize the grid.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's no secret that the market for private credit has boomed in recent years. The surprising thing is that it has continued to do so even as interest rates have surged, defying many people's expectation that this relatively new market would suffer once an era of "loose" money comes to an end. Instead, the market for private credit in the US now rivals the size of the market for publicly-traded, junk-rated corporate bonds. But what exactly is private credit? How does it differ from broadly-syndicated stuff like leverage loans and corporate debt? How susceptible is it to higher rates? What is driving continued interest in this asset class? And what could cause it to wobble? On this episode we speak with Laura Holson of New Mountain Capital — where she manages about $9 billion across various private credit investments — about how the industry works. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Barr is a busy man these days. As the Federal Reserve's vice-chair for supervision, he's looking at ways of making the financial system safer through the next-generation of US banking regulation, known as the Basel "endgame" proposal. In July, he also unveiled the central bank's new real-time payment settlement system for banks, called FedNow, after years of development. Of course, all of this is happening at an interesting time for banking. This year saw the collapse of three banks following deposit runs. There have been big losses on bond portfolios as interest rates rise, a cyberattack that briefly unsettled the US Treasury market, and there's still a lot of general uncertainty over the direction of the US economy. In this episode, which was recorded live onstage at The Clearing House annual conference in New York, we speak to Barr about how he's thinking about the payments space, big changes to bank regulation, and the macro outlook.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since becoming chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan has arguably taken a novel approach to antitrust, one that incorporates broader ideas of what might actually constitute anticompetitive behavior. She's challenged huge tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft, and more recently, filed a lawsuit against a private equity firm that's been buying up anesthesiology companies across Texas. The action is noteworthy because it targets a common PE strategy of "rolling-up" multiple businesses and then consolidating them to eke out market efficiencies. So it's no wonder that PE players have called the FTC lawsuit "terrifying," or that Khan has been named "Wall Street's No. 1 enemy." In this episode, we speak with Lina Khan herself about the case, and whether the principles underlying it could be extended outside of healthcare to other industries with PE involvement. We also talk about political pushback, the FTC's research and examination process, and even... chickens.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in 2020, we spoke with Maciej Wojtal, a London-based fund manager who specializes in Iranian stocks. This market is one of the most unfamiliar in the world and most investors can't even look up where the country's shares are trading given ongoing sanctions. Of course, there's also constantly changing geopolitical risk, which has only picked up in light of the Israel-Hamas war. In this episode, we find out what's been going on with Iranian stocks in the midst of the recent upheaval and dig deeper into its overall economy after years of isolation from the Western world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this year, we saw the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Bank following a run on deposits and big losses on their portfolios of bonds. Since then, regulators have been discussing changes to existing bank regulation, prompting existential questions about the future of the US lending landscape. But there are other risks lurking in the banking system too — including those created by new technology and changing business models. In this episode, recorded live at Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, we speak with Michael Hsu, the acting comptroller of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. He talks about banking regulation, crypto contagion, the rise of banking-as-a-service (BaaS) and the supply chain of payments.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At Bloomberg, we’re always talking about the biggest business stories, and no one is bigger than Elon Musk. In this new chat weekly show, host David Papadopoulos and a panel of guests including Businessweek’s Max Chafkin, Tesla reporter Dana Hull, Big Tech editor Sarah Frier, and more, will break down the most important stories on Musk and his empire. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finding good, high quality childcare has been a growing challenge in the US for a long time. The pandemic only made the situation worse, with all kinds of negative knock-on effects for the economy. So what is actually involved in building out a childcare business? What are the costs? How much can it scale? Can it be made more efficient by changing regulations or subsidies? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Matt Bateman, a member of the founding team at Higher Ground Education, which operates a chain of over 120 Montessori schools across several states. We discuss how the business of early education works, what the opportunities are, and the constraints on making childcare more abundant and affordable for everyone.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dimensional Fund Advisors is one of the fastest growing providers of mutual funds and ETFs. It was founded in the early 1980s, built upon University of Chicago research on efficient markets, passive investing, and other ideas that have since become extremely widespread. After having built up a huge following among financial advisors for their mutual funds, the company has been racing up the list of ETF providers. On this episode, we speak with Dimensional's co-CEO and chief investment officer Gerard O'Reilly on the firm's history, its approach to investing, and where he sees the fund management industry going.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This special episode of Odd Lots was recorded live at the Bloomberg Screentime festival earlier this month in Los Angeles, where the summer strikes by Hollywood writers and actors were a hot topic among panelists and guests. During the event, we spoke with Omair Sharif, the founder and president of Inflation Insights, on how prolonged work stoppages in the film and television industry have impacted the economy, both in California and across the country, and what the recent rise in labor actions means for the US overall. You can also watch a video stream of this episode at YouTube.com/@Bloomberg_LiveSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For awhile, it was Red Bull that was synonymous with energy drinks. Then Monster Energy came along and turned into one of the best performing stocks of all time. And now there’s another company showing explosive growth along with a surging stock, and that’s Celsius Holdings. But where did Celsius come from? Why do some drink makers manage to make it in such a crowded field? And why is the energy drink space such a seemingly hot category? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Mark Astrachan, an analyst at Stifel Nicholaus, who specializes in the energy drink space. We discuss the keys to winning and the broader competitive landscape of the industry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US is taking a fresh look at nuclear power. After a dearth of construction, and de-commissioning of working nuclear plants, people are talking, yet again, about it as a source of steady, affordable, carbon-free electricity. But of course, nuclear has its drawbacks, particularly on the financial side, as new plants have been plagued by cost over-runs, contributing to utility bankruptcies. So what would need to happen to get the economics working again? On this episode we speak with Mark Nelson, the founder of Radiant Energy Group, to discuss the state of the industry, the state of the technology, and what it would take to bring nuclear back into the mix.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So far, the war between Israel and Hamas has had only a mild impact on world markets. Oil prices are higher than they were prior to the terrorist attack on October 7, but the link between the war and the broader oil market is ambiguous. So what are the risks, if the conflict widens or remains prolonged? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Gregory Brew, analyst at the Eurasia Group, to get a better understanding of what we've seen so far, and the the things we should be watching for. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mortgage rates have surged over the last couple of years. But surprisingly to some, actual home prices in the US have been resilient. This has created a historic shock to affordability, with a typical monthly payment on a home purchase soaring. But how long can this go on? Particularly as rates continue to rise, with a 30-year fixed rate mortgage near 8% now, we speak with Morgan Stanley housing strategist, and past Odd Lots guest, Jim Egan, about the impact of this rate environment. He explains why we may be at the limit to how far house prices can rise, and why at this point, the key variable is whether more supply comes onto the market.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There remains a lot of anxiety over whether inflation in the US will gather steam all over again. Part of this worry stems from the fact that there were multiple bouts of inflation in the 1970s, which was the last time the US had a serious inflation problem. So to understand whether our current environment bears similar risks to that of the 70s, it's important to understand what actually drove inflation during that period. On this episode, we speak with Itamar Drechsler, a finance professor at Penn's Wharton school. He argues that the banking regulation known as Reg Q impaired the transmission of monetary policy, and resulted in a perverse dynamic via which rate hikes served to impair the supply side of the economy, rather than cool the demand side.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When New York legalized recreational cannabis for adults, it didn't just want to fling the gates wide open for anyone to take part. Instead it specifically aimed to help out and give priority to individuals who were previously harmed by the war on drugs. However, more than two years after the law was signed, there are just a handful of legal, licensed shops. Meanwhile, there are thousands of un-licensed shops that proliferate across New York City. At the same time, red tape and legal challenges have hampered the efforts of those going down the legal, regulated path. On this episode, we speak with two entrepreneurs who are trying to go down the regulated path: Coss Marte and Alfredo Angueira of Conbud. They've spent over a million dollars getting ready to launch their dispensary in Manhattan's Lower East Side, but have been unable to actually open it on schedule due to various last minute glitches and legal challenges. We discuss what they've encountered in their efforts, and what it's been costing them to go down the legal path. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the past week, the bond market has experienced a historic selloff. Yields on benchmark 10-year US Treasuries soared towards 4.9% while those on 30-year debt reached the highest since 2007. But the exact cause of these dramatic moves in the most important market in the world aren't entirely clear, with people looking at everything from the Federal Reserve's outlook for interest rates, to the the jump in the price of oil, or booming supply as the deficit expands, as well as more technical things like the term premium. So what's driving the selloff and how do we disaggregate interrelated things like supply and demand? How do you decompose longer-term and short-term factors feeding into the price of US Treasuries? What can stem the big moves? And what are investors saying about their appetite for US debt? We speak with Jay Barry, co-head of US interest rate strategy at JPMorgan Chase, about the big bond market selloff.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jigar Shah is the head of the Loan Programs Office at the Department of Energy and thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, he has hundreds of billions of dollars to lend to companies to accelerate the commercialization of clean energy technologies. The office has already been extremely active over the past year, and there's lots more to come. In this special episode of the podcast that was recorded live at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas, we discuss his office's strategy and what it will take to achieve the clean, cheap energy system that so many people want. We also discuss specific industries, including nuclear power, and what it will take to build momentum towards more deployment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can a soft landing be achieved? This is still a wide open question, given the highly uncertain macro environment. On the one hand, you have had a continued deceleration is most US inflation measures and the unemployment rate is below 4%. On the other hand, there are concerns over re-acceleration, more inflation, and a bond market where yields seem to be screaming higher day after day. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Austan Goolsbee, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who sees the possibility of, in his words, a "golden path" -- or the "mother of all soft landings." We discuss why and how it can be achieved, what the Fed can do to deliver a positive outcome, and what the market is telling us about the work that still needs to be done.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US economy has so far withstood the effects of higher interest rates a lot better than expected. Unemployment is still at historic lows, even while inflation has cooled and the Federal Reserve has hiked rates for about 18 months. That's not how things are supposed to work according to traditional economic theory. So what's going on? On this episode, we speak with Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin about how he's viewing the impact of higher rates right now. He talks about what businesses are telling him about their plans, and what sectors of the economy could still feel the long and variable lag from tighter monetary policy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For those who can't get enough Odd Lots, we're now offering you... "Lots More." This new podcast show, appearing on Fridays, will see hosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal chatting with some of your favorite Odd Lots guests about the latest breaking news and the biggest themes on their minds in markets, finance and economics. Joe’s away for this episode. So Tracy gathers two of her favorite Bloomberg colleagues — Matt Levine and Mike Mackenzie — to talk about the basis trade that’s got regulators worried, plus the recent bond market selloff, reminiscences over Tokyo in the 1990s and much more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve has hiked rates in rapid fashion, yet the evidence of their impact is scarce. Inflation is still hot (though it has come down quite a bit.) The unemployment rate remains very low. And economic growth appears to be robust. So does this mean that higher rates aren't significant? Or could it be that their impact has simply yet to be felt, and that it's still coming. On this episode, our guest argues the latter case that due to lags, we really haven't felt the pain from rate hikes yet. Julia Coronado, is the founder, CEO and president of Macro Policy Perspectives, as well as a Clinical Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business. She argues that we really haven't felt the credit effects yet from higher rates, but that they're on the way. In particular, we discuss the delayed impact on commercial real estate and other areas of the economy where debt may have been termed out, but will eventually need refinancing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to economics, there are a bunch of different schools to choose from, but pretty much all of them are focused on boosting growth. Except, that is, for the degrowth movement, which aims to refocus economics away from GDP. As more and more complaints about "late-stage capitalism" seem to be piling up, along with worries about the impact of rampant consumerism on the environment, is this the degrowth movement's time to shine? We speak with Noel King, the co-host of Vox's Today Explained podcast, about her new mini-series exploring discontent with the capitalist model. She explains the intellectual origins of the degrowth movement, why it's getting more attention now, and just what an economy that no longer prioritizes "growth at any cost" might look like.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year has seen a spate of insurance companies announcing that they're leaving markets like Florida and California, citing the increased risk of natural disasters, such as floods and wildfires. Elsewhere, premiums for certain types of insurance are skyrocketing — yet many insurance companies can't seem to turn a profit in certain areas. Melanie Gall is the co-director of the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security at Arizona State University, and she also manages the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States, known as SHELDUS. In this episode, we talk to her about what's driving insurers away from certain markets, and what can still be done to protect businesses and homeowners from catastrophe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the US auto industry needed a restructuring or bailout in 2009, the Obama administration tapped former banker and investor Steven Rattner to lead the effort. As the government's "car czar," he helped shape an agreement that saw the United Auto Workers accept significant concessions in order to preserve the financial stability of the big three American carmakers. Now the UAW is on strike, with an aim of reversing many of those concessions and gaining new benefits for their workers. So what can the UAW reasonably accomplish? How plausible are their asks? And can US industry remain competitive with higher labor costs? On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Rattner to get his take on the negotiations, the challenge of the energy transition on the incumbent automakers, and the goals of Bidenomics more broadly, as the administration seeks to boost domestic manufacturing in areas like EVs, batteries, and semiconductors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When generations undergo any kind of collective life-changing event, it shapes how people think about money -- and how they think about spending and investing. Past upheavals like the Great Depression, the World Wars, the inflation of the 1970s, and Weimar-era hyperinflation, had profound effects on the cohorts that lived through them. So what will be the effect of the pandemic on current generations? And what is the combined effect on people who lived through the pandemic, the Great Financial Crisis, and 9/11 in a span of less than 20 years? On this episode, we speak to Morgan Housel, personal finance expert and author of the bestselling book The Psychology of Money, on the lasting impact from these recent societal disruptions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In theory, the Federal Reserve operates by tightening the supply of credit. Or at least making it more close. Yet so far, despite the rate hikes, the economy has remained resilient. And credit spreads have remained surprisingly tight. So what's going on? Where are the risks? Why are some pockets of the credit markets showing weakness, while others are rock solid? On this episode of the podcast, which was recorded live at the Future Proof conference in Huntington Beach, California, we speak with Wayne Dahl, a managing director and investment risk officer at Oaktree Capital Management, to get a broader lay of the land.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For those who can't get enough Odd Lots, we're now offering you... "Lots More." This new podcast show, appearing on Fridays, will see hosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal chatting with some of your favorite Odd Lots guests about the latest breaking news and the biggest themes on their minds in markets, finance and economics. On this inaugural episode, they're joined by Neil Dutta of Renaissance Macro Research to talk inflation, a possible government shutdown, the risk of a Federal Reserve policy error, and just how high bond yields can get. Are we getting a soft-landing or an inflationary boom? And why do some investors find the doom-and-gloom philosophy so appealing?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, consumers around the country experienced an explosion in the price of eggs, in part due to an outbreak of avian flu. Since then, egg prices have come back down to more normal levels. But what did we learn from that outbreak? What could we do better? And how can we mitigate further the economic impact of such waves? On this episode, we speak with Delaware Senator Chris Coons, the co-sponsor of proposed legislation to change how the USDA compensates farmers when the next outbreak comes. We discuss why this is an important topic for the poultry farming community, how insurance works right now, and lessons from the last outbreak.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bill Gross became known as the Bond King during his legendary, multi-decade run at Pimco, eventually growing the company to manage trillions of dollars. Of course, that success coincided with a remarkable bond bull market -- a bull market that came to a screeching halt over the course of the last two years. So what does Gross think of markets today? And could there ever be a new bond king in this environment? During a live episode of the Odd Lots podcast, taped at the Future Proof conference in Huntington Beach, California, Gross talked about the state of the market, reflected on his career, discussed the things that make him happy today, and addressed old rivals and competitors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In some respects, the real estate market has been surprisingly resilient in the face of rising interest rates. Homebuilders have generally performed well and home prices have not tumbled the way many might have expected. But looked at in another light, rising interest rates and reduced credit availability mean some real estate projects that might have made sense a year or two ago are no longer penciling out. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with David O'Reilly, the CEO of Howard Hughes Holdings, a major publicly-traded real estate developer with Master Planned Communities all over the country. Thanks to the company's role in the real estate market, David has perspective on all aspects of real estate, from housing to offices to retail development. We discuss the impact of higher rates, costlier insurance, and inflation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A decade ago, there was a lot of hype about self driving cars. In fact, there was more interest in self-driving cars than there was in electric vehicles, in terms of the future of the auto industry. But progress in developing these robotic cars has turned out to be slow, and many tricky challenges still have not been solved. But is the technology finally ready for prime time? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with long-time technology journalist and analyst Tim Lee, the author of the Understanding AI newsletter, about why he believes self-driving cars are here and why they're finally about to make serious commercial inroads.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Certain people claim that New York City has a reputation for... not having the best fruits and vegetables. This is a controversial point and not everyone agrees. But regardless of where you stand on this hot button issue, getting produce into the city has unique challenges for multiple reasons. So how does it all work? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Karen Karp, founder of Karen Karp & Partners and an expert in food supply chains, who works with a range of institutions to help get their produce delivered. We discuss the three main ways that fruits and vegetables come into NYC, the key role of the Hunts Point distribution terminal, and how this important supply chain can be improved.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At Jackson Hole, the Kansas City Fed's annual gathering for economists and central bankers, there's a lot of focus on the short-term path of monetary policy. But, of course, the Economic Symposium is supposed to be about long-term policy frameworks. And central bankers aren't just responsible for changing benchmark interest rates — they are also financial regulators. On this episode, we speak with Hyun Song Shin, economic advisor and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements, about where he sees risks lurking in the financial system now. We discuss the shift from bank lending to bond-based borrowing, and what it means for inflation now. We talk about how even safe assets like US Treasuries can become sources of stress, such as in March 2020, the gilt crisis of last year, and most recently, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. We also talk about how higher interest rates are supposed to bring down inflation, but might not be doing that much currently, as well as the limits of central banking.Further listening: Big Take: Carry Trades, ExplainedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Biden administration has undertaken an aggressive effort to revitalize domestic manufacturing, particularly in areas like semiconductors and green technology. The reasons are manifold. The pandemic exposed frailties in the supply chain. Climate concerns have accelerated the urgency around the energy transition. And anxiety about growing Chinese dominance in key areas (such as batteries) has heightened geopolitical concerns. So now, day after day, we see spates of announcements of new factories being opened up in these areas. But what are the risks and dangers to this approach? On this episode of the podcast, recorded at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, we speak with Adam Posen, a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee who now serves as president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He warns that the basic logic for this domestic industrial policy is misguided and based on a faulty understanding of domestic economic dynamics. He also says that we're taking a wrong and dangerous approach to dealing with perceived competitive threats from China.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In recent years, the absolute level of government debt around the world has risen dramatically. The Covid emergency unleashed a huge wave of public-sector spending in 2020 and beyond. Meanwhile, spending remains high for other reasons, including public investment on climate and energy-related issues. So what does that mean for policy going forward? What does it mean for central banks tasked with controlling inflation? University of California at Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen presented a paper on exactly this topic at this year’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. On this episode, we speak with Eichengreen about his research, why it's of importance to central bankers, and what history says about the prospects for fiscal consolidation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the global financial system, US Treasuries play a special role. They’re basically as close to cash as a financial asset can get and their yields act as the "risk-free" rate against which all other assets are measured. In other words, the US Treasury market is supposed to be the safest and most liquid in the world. But Treasuries have also been at the center of some pretty big financial events in recent years, including the March 2020 sell-off and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this year. The Federal Reserve has had to step in to support the market, and now there’s concern over who will buy all these bonds as the US Treasury ramps up its borrowing. So why does the world’s most important market keep experiencing these issues? And what can be done to improve the way Treasuries are bought and sold? In this episode, we speak with Stanford University finance professor Darrell Duffie, who just presented a paper about this very issue to central bankers at the annual Jackson Hole symposium. We talk to him about why the Treasury market keeps experiencing problems, what can be done to fix it, and why the issue is gaining more urgency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave his much-anticipated speech at the Kansas City Fed Monetary Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. While many were expecting some kind of academic or theoretical discussion, the text was straightforwardly about the current path of monetary policy. So what did we learn? What actually happens at Jackson Hole? And how did this year's event fit in with prior years? On this episode, we turn to two of our colleagues, Bloomberg Surveillance co-host Tom Keene as well as Michael McKee, international economics and policy correspondent for Bloomberg Television. We discuss the speech, the whole event, and how 2023 compares and contrasts with previous editions of the event.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg Surveillance comes to the Odd Lots podcast!  Listen for a special edition of Bloomberg Surveillance from the Federal Reserve's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Hear more from Bloomberg Surveillance on Apple or Spotify.Guests in this episode:Mohamed El-Erian, President of Queens' CollegeTracy Alloway, Co-Host of Odd LotsPatrick Harker, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of PhiladelphiaKristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary FundSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tractor Supply Co. has grown from a small mail order business set up in the 1930s into the biggest farm and ranch retailer operating in the US. Along the way, its share price has soared from around $1 in the 1990s to well over $200 today. The company has managed to tap into a wave of enthusiasm for hobby farming, pet care and rural living, with its revenues jumping 70% between 2019 and 2022. So what accounts for the success of Tractor Supply, such that analysts have referred to it as "one of the most interesting retailers on the planet"? And can it keep up the rapid growth? In this episode we speak with Bryant University Trustee Professor of Management Michael Roberto, who just published a Harvard Business School case study on the company.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Chinese economy is in a slump. Industrial production is down. Retail sales are down. The property industry continues to struggle. The People's Bank of China just did a surprise rate cut. So what's driving the decline and what can the government do about it? On this episode of the podcast we speak with Zongyuan Zoe Liu, the Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the new book Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions. She explains how the "four Ds" — demand, debt, demographics and decoupling — are acting as a persistent drag on the Chinese economy right now. We discuss possible policy responses and how China's war chest of financial assets plays into the government's strategy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a new class of weight-loss drugs in town. GLP-1 medications including Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro were created to treat diabetes but have since been found to suppress appetites and induce substantial weight loss. It's a big deal for the companies which make them, with shares of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly all soaring in recent weeks. But the drugs could end up having a much broader economic impact too. On this episode, we speak with James van Geelen of Citrinitas Capital, about the second-order effects of effective weight-loss drugs. He talks us through how he's evaluating the potential of the new meds and how he approaches possible 'mega-trends' like GLP-1 or AI.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do some countries become rich while others stagnate? And can you predict which countries become wealthy in advance of them actually increasing their collective GDP? The answer may lie in the complexity of each nation's domestic economy. On this episode we speak with Ricardo Hausmann, a professor and director of the Growth Lab at Harvard University. He helps us understand what economic complexity is, how it's measured, and the process by which countries can move from being less complex to more complex over time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There have been a number of news stories lately that seem straight out of science fiction. We've heard claims before Congress that the government is suppressing information regarding the existence of UFOs or aliens. There are computers that seem to think. And scientists in Korea claimed to have made an extraordinary breakthrough in the hunt for room temperature superconductivity. So how should we think about these things in terms of their potential impact on the economy? In addition to being a Nobel Prize winner and a columnist for the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman is also an avid science fiction fan. In fact, he has credited science fiction for his original interest in economics, even once writing a paper on interstellar trade. He joined us to discuss all of these things, and how to view them through the economics lens.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Movie and TV productions have come to a nearly complete stop in Hollywood. Both the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America are on strike, with the latter having halted work for the major studios over three months ago. What brought the industry to this point? What do the two opposing sides want? And how do these strikes fit into other labor actions that we're seeing this summer? On this episode, we speak with Lucas Shaw, entertainment reporter at Bloomberg and the author of the Screentime newsletter, as well as Josh Eidelson, a labor reporter for Businessweek and Bloomberg News, about what's going on with the strikes right now, what both sides are looking for, and the prospects of a resolution.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On September 14, the contract between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three carmakers (GM, Ford and Stellantis) is expiring — and the possibility of a strike is real. This comes at a delicate time for multiple reasons. The labor market is tight, which means workers have other options. Inflation is high. And the auto industry is undergoing a major shift to the electric vehicle market, which may change the composition and pay of the labor force. The stakes are high. So what does the union want and how does it fit into the goals of the broader labor market? To understand more, we speak with Dan Vicente, the director of UAW Region 9, as well as Alex Press, a labor reporter at Jacobin magazine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the US, Tesla remains far and away the dominant maker of electric vehicles. But on a global scale, the situation is much more competitive. Over the last few years, Chinese EV makers have massively ramped up their export capacity and one in particular — BYD — sells more total vehicles (both pure EV and hybrid) than Tesla does. On this episode, we speak with Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF about the competition between these two companies, China's EV strategy more broadly, the worldwide battle over batteries, the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act and the big shifts underway in the global automotive landscape.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A key plank of the Biden administration's "Bidenomics" involves stronger antitrust enforcement and we've seen the White House empower agencies like the Department of Justice to step up actions on monopolies and other behaviors that reduce competition. But what exactly counts as anti-competitive nowadays? And how does promoting competition sit alongside the administration's more proactive public investment and industrial policies? In this episode, we speak with Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the DOJ, about how he's thinking about these issues. We also talk competition in banking after a wave of consolidation in the space, as well as new challenges posed by Big Tech and artificial intelligence.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Silicon Valley Bank imploded, there was a lot of talk about the future of regional and community banks in the United States. Can they compete with the large, too-big-to-fail institutions? What will happen to their deposits and their cost of capital? But actually the challenges facing smaller banks long precede March's banking drama. Tensions have been building for years, and will likely continue to do so, even if things have stabilized over the last few months. On this episode, we speak with Scott Hildenbrand, the chief balance sheet strategist at Piper Sandler, who works hand-in-hand with smaller banks to address these issues. We discuss the competitive landscape, the threats to their business model and why he thinks massive consolidation is on the way.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, as the Federal Reserve hiked rates to the highest levels in decades, there were lots of warnings about an imminent collapse in the US housing market. But home prices have only dipped slightly since then and now they're even recovering, stacking up three consecutive month-on-month gains. Not many people expected the most interest rate-sensitive portion of the economy to be this resilient. So what happened? Morgan Stanley housing strategist James Egan was one of few who was early to forecast that home prices would prove resilient, even as the cost of mortgages went up. In this episode, he walks us through how he sees the housing market now and what it would actually take for home prices to come down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Artificial Intelligence is all the rage right now and most of the investor excitement has so far been focused on the companies providing the hardware and computing power to actually run this new technology. So how does it all work and what does it actually take to run these complex models? On this episode, we speak with Brannin McBee, co-founder of CoreWeave, which provides cloud computing services based on GPUs, the type of chips pioneered by Nvidia and which have now become immensely popular for generative AI. He walks us through the infrastructure involved in powering AI, how difficult it is to get chips right now, who has them, and how the landscape might change in the future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're in the midst of an AI mania of sorts. In public markets, investors are placing bets on the companies perceived as being the winners of this new wave of computing. Companies that aren't even in "tech" are touting their AI bonafides. And of course, in private markets, every venture capitalist suddenly seems to be pivoting to AI in some way or another. But who will actually win? Will it be the big incumbents? Can those incumbents be disrupted? Will it be the companies who have access to unique datasets? Or will it be whoever has the most computing power? On this episode, we speak with Josh Wolfe, co-founder of Lux Capital, who has been investing in the space for several years, long before it was trendy. He talks about where he's placing his bets and how he's thinking about identifying winners.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Arizona recently announced new constraints on housing development in the areas around Phoenix. At issue is water rights and scarcity, which have been a challenge for the US Southwest for as long as people have been living there. That being said, the region is currently in the midst of a 25-year megadrought and when you combine that with booming growth, difficult choices may have to be made. But how do water rights get divided? Who holds them? How much is water worth to the housing developers, farmers and semiconductor manufacturers that have flocked to the state? To learn more, we speak with Kathryn Sorensen, director of research at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University. We discuss both current and past water management practices in the state.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Due to a combination of drought, climate change and booming growth, Arizona is facing looming water scarcity. But for all the sprawl and population increase, the overwhelming amount of water used in the state is not consumed by residences, but rather farmers. So naturally, many argue that we should be doing less agriculture in the desert and move the production of cotton, alfalfa and various vegetables towards places with more rain. On this episode, we speak with Trevor Bales, the proprietor of Bales Hay Farm & Ranch in Arizona about his family’s history in the state and why he thinks this dry desert is a great place to grow alfalfa.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richard Koo literally wrote the book on balance sheet recessions, or the idea that large levels of debt can weigh on future growth for years and even decades to come. Now, the Nomura Research Institute chief economist sees a similar risk emerging in China. The country has been struggling with vast levels of debt and slowing economic growth in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this episode, Koo discusses the signs he sees that a balance sheet recession is already underway as China's companies shy away from borrowing more money for future investment. He also suggests some ideas for just what China's authorities should do about it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big cities like New York have two real estate problems. Housing is scarce and office buildings are empty (or at least under-utilized.) So there would seem to be an obvious solution: turn the offices into homes. And indeed there has been a lot of talk lately about "office-to-resi" conversions. But it's very hard, for a wide variety of reasons. Zoning, financing, and then, of course, the operational aspects of the construction all need to be in place. So what does it take? On this episode, we speak with Joey Chilelli, managing director at the Vanbarton Group, a firm that's been involved with these projects for a decade and long before the pandemic upended both real estate markets. We discuss the challenges involved in actually pulling off these complex projects.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Biden recently made it clear that what we're seeing play out in the economy now is the result of "Bidenomics." The current expansion has defied the constant predictions of economic gloom. Every other day, it seems, some firm announces a new battery plant or semiconductor facility for the United States as a result of incentives from either the CHIPS Act or the Inflation Reduction Act. So what's next? How can we be confident the plants will be productive? And what is the Bidenomics view of global trade? To learn more, we speak with Jared Bernstein, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. We discuss the key pillars of the White House economic agenda, and how these ambitious policy measures are being implemented.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every industry is trying to figure out just how AI or Large Language Models can be used to do business. But Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, has already been at it for a long time. For years, it has explored AI and adjacent technologies in order to analyze data, test theories, develop novel investment strategies and help its employees make better decisions. But how does it actually use the tech in practice? And what's next going forward? On this episode, we speak with co-CIO Greg Jensen about both the possibilities and limitations of these advances. We also discuss markets and macro, and why he believes that investors are still too optimistic about the Federal Reserve's ability to get inflation back to target. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Zoltan Pozsar has built a reputation for covering the intricacies of money markets. For the past eight years, he published those insights as a strategist at Credit Suisse. But in this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, Pozsar reveals his next career move following his departure from the Swiss bank earlier this year. He also gives us an update on his Bretton Woods III thesis, or the idea that the global financial system is going through a "monetary divorce" from US dollar hegemony and becoming more multi-polar. He also gives us his take on the recent banking crisis and what it means for global funding markets going forward.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the pandemic struck in 2020, the actor Ben McKenzie (who you might know from The OC and Gotham) had a lot of time on his hands. And like a lot of people, he suddenly got interested in crypto when an old friend of his pushed him to buy some Bitcoin. But unlike a lot of other people, McKenzie didn't rush out to buy it. Instead, he dusted off his old economics degree and decided to learn about how the industry really works. And what he learned shocked him. So he (along with his co-author Jacob Silverman) spent the last few years writing a new book titled Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and The Golden Age Of Fraud. In an interview conducted live at the Bloomberg Invest summit, McKenzie explains why he thinks the industry is rotten and corrupt and designed in a way to enrich a small group of insiders at the expense of a large, misinformed and desperate public. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More than a decade ago, GMO strategist James Montier published a paper predicting that corporate profit margins were destined to come down from "nosebleed" levels. Fast forward to 2023, and it's clear that hasn't happened as profit margins remain far above their long-term average. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, Montier explains what he got wrong back in 2012, why corporate profits have remained so stubbornly high, and what this could mean for stock valuations now. He also discusses the ongoing debate over whether high corporate earnings are fueling inflation, as well as revisiting the work of economist Michael Kalecki.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Saudi Arabia has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars snapping up international soccer stars in recent months, including legendary players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, to boost the rosters of its Saudi Pro League. It's not the first time we've seen a country spend a lot of money to try to build up a domestic sports league, but it does have some key differences to previous attempts like we've seen in China, or in the US with Major League Soccer. For a start, the kingdom is spending a lot of money, opening up thorny questions about competition worldwide and Financial Fair Play rules in Europe, specifically. More importantly, it's also doing this at a governmental scale, with the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund and state-owned oil giant taking active roles. So what exactly is Saudi Arabia trying to accomplish and will it succeed? And what does this huge influx of money mean for soccer in the rest of the world? On this episode, we speak with Michael Caley and Mike Goodman, co-hosts of the Double Pivot Podcast, to discuss the big business of football and why turning a profit is not always the primary goal.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're used to thinking of modern finance as practically synonymous with computers. Banks are basically just big collections of Excel spreadsheets, keeping track of who owes what to whom. And most trading nowadays is done by clicking a button on a screen. But how did all this work before we had this type of technology? And what can previous technological revolutions tell us about the direction of new ones, such as the potential deployment of artificial intelligence? In this episode, we speak with Anne Murphy, history professor at the University of Portsmouth and the author of Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England, as well as John Handel, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce. They walk us through just how banking and finance was done in the days before computers, telephones and even the telegraph.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

De-dollarization is all the rage right now, with lots of talk about whether the US currency will be able to maintain its dominant status in the global financial system. But regardless of what happens in the future, it's worth asking how we got to this point originally. How is it that the dollar came to dominate not just global trade flows but also became the currency of choice for things like buying oil? And why are there large pools of eurodollars sitting outside the United States? In this episode, we speak with Josh Younger, formerly of JPMorgan Chase and now a senior adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, about the surprising policy decisions that went into creating eurodollars and petrodollars, and why they matter now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Steve Eisman is known for having bet against the housing market prior to the Great Financial Crisis in a trade immortalized by Michael Lewis in The Big Short. So what is he betting on now? In a special live episode of Odd Lots, recorded at the Bloomberg Invest summit, the Neuberger Berman portfolio manager discusses the recent banking turmoil (he thinks it's contained), the boom in anything related to AI, and his current bets on US manufacturing and infrastructure. He also talks about investing in rewiring the nation's electricity grid and why he thinks this theme has years left to play out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are all kinds of societal concerns emerging out of the rise of artificial intelligence. Will it put us all out of work? Will fraudsters be able to use deepfakes — technology that can replicate our images and our voices — to scam us? We're in uncharted territory and nobody knows for sure how society will negotiate these risks. While many people are familiar with ChatGPT, its founder Sam Altman also co-founded Worldcoin, which aims to mitigate these risks. Enter: The Orb, an eyeball-scanning device that could provide everyone with a unique personal identifier. Think a global social security number, except you never have to share what it is with anyone. On this episode, we speak with Alex Blania, the CEO and co-founder of Tools For Humanity, the developer behind the Orb and the Worldcoin project, on his company's vision for how this tech can be used for things like proving one's humanness or collecting a Universal Basic Income in a world where AI predominates. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a lot of frustration about the government's ability to build things in the US. Subways. Bridges. High-speed rail. Electricity transmission. But there's another crucial area where the public sector often struggles, and that is software. We saw it with the infamous rollout of Obamacare. We see it in the UX of the Treasury Direct website. And we saw it in the way state unemployment insurance systems broke during the pandemic. So why is it so hard for the public sector to build and maintain software? On this episode we speak with Jennifer Pahlka, the founder and former executive director of Code for America and author of the new book Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better, as well as Dave Guarino, who recently left the Department of Labor after working on upgrading the unemployment insurance system. Both have a long history of working on public sector software systems and they explain why the problem is so tricky.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A lot has happened since we last spoke to Brad Setser in April 2020, towards the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. For a start, Setser was appointed to be a trade advisor in the Biden administration during a period of immense disruption. There was lots of talk about a potential reshuffling of the way the global economy works, and things like nearshoring and deglobalization. But some big predictions for the way world trade will function haven't come to fruition. For instance, the US is still running a current account deficit and China is still running a current account surplus. So in this episode, Setser returns to discuss what has and hasn't changed in global trade in the last three years. He's left the Biden administration and returned to the Council on Foreign Relations, where he's a senior fellow. He talks about everything from the US-China trade imbalance to the impact of sanctions on the world economy to China's electric vehicle and plane production, plus the future of the dollar.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this year, Odd Lots talked about the idea of companies taking advantage of bottlenecks and other disruptions to raise their prices. Since then, the notion of this type of corporate-led inflation has burst into the public discourse with central bankers and politicians all taking a closer look. But how does this type of inflation differ from more traditional economic interpretations of prices, and what are the implications for monetary and economic policy? In this episode, we talk once again to Isabella Weber, the UMass-Amherst economics professor who dubbed this phenomenon "sellers' inflation" in a paper published earlier this year. She talks about how the way we think about inflation is changing and her own experience of seeing public attitudes shift in real time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you think interest rates seem high right now, you might be operating with too short of a perspective. For a longer-term perspective, you'd want to talk to someone like Jim Grant. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, the founder and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer and a long-time financial commentator talks to us about why we're at the beginning of a longer-term trend of higher rates that could last decades. He argues that investors will struggle to shake off years of "buy the dip" behavior, a ZIRP mentality, and a misplaced faith in the Federal Reserve. We also discuss what it means for market behavior today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this year, it emerged that the London Metals Exchange had been holding a bunch of bags filled with stones instead of the nickel needed to back trades for major commodities players, including Trafigura. Before that, commodities trader Mercuria was given painted rocks instead of the copper it was supposed to take delivery of. In short, the commodities world is no stranger to fraud. But what is it about the business of trading, moving and storing commodities that makes it so susceptible to scandal? In this episode, we speak to repeat Odd Lots guests and commodities collateral specialists Mercury Group CEO Anton Posner and President Margo Brock, about some recent episodes of counterfeiting in commodities world, why they seem to keep happening, and what could be done to prevent further instances from occurring.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US government is spending billions of dollars to build out state-of-the-art domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity. But spending money is no guarantee of success. In fact, there are already worries that the CHIPS Act passed by the Biden administration isn't succeeding, due to various roadblocks, speedbumps and unforced errors. So what are the odds that it will pay off? And what should we be watching for as evidence of its efficacy? On this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Dan Wang, technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics and Adam Ozimek, chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group. This episode was recorded live at Decades, Adam's bowling alley in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, during the #EconTwitterIRL event in April.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stewart Butterfield has been at the forefront of two epochal turning points for tech. First, he was the co-founder of the photo sharing site Flickr, that was one of the defining brands of the so-called Web 2.0 and the world of user-generated content. Several years after that, he co-founded Slack, one of the big winners of the software-as-a-service wars, changing how people work and how companies operate. Now we're at another turning point for the tech industry. Layoffs have occurred across the space and AI is putting traditional business models into doubt. On this episode, we speak with Butterfield about his experiences and what he sees coming next for tech.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2011, then-Vice President Biden had a front row seat to a bruising debt ceiling standoff between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. That fight arguably derailed the Obama presidency and the nascent economic recovery. After that experience, Biden and his team had insisted that this time they would not negotiate over a debt ceiling increase. Yet here we are, and the current administration is doing exactly that. According to the Treasury Department, we're just days away from the so called "X-date" (when a US default would occur) and both the White House and new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have been debating what conditions a hike in the debt ceiling should come with. So how did they get into this situation? And what were the other options? On this episode we speak with Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America, and Arnab Datta, senior counsel of Employ America, about the current state of play and how it might have been avoided.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a lot of discussion these days about de-dollarization and whether the US dollar will lose its standing as the world's sole reserve currency. Generally, people seem open to the idea, but they also don't see many good alternatives out there. The renminbi is the obvious candidate to take share away from the dollar, given the size of the Chinese economy and China's role in global trade. But for various reasons, the currency isn't suited to be a global reserve currency. So what would it actually take to become one? And what would be the effects if it started to play a major role in global trade? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Karthik Sankaran, a longtime FX veteran, about what China would have to do if it really has global aspirations for its currency, and why a more multipolar FX landscape might be good for world financial stability.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of years ago, it was an amazing time to have a truck or be a trucker. The goods economy was absolutely booming. Prices were booming. Supply chains were broken. Everyone wanted access to more freight. Fast forward to spring 2023 and the situation couldn't be more different. Prices have collapsed and the environment is now as bad for carriers as it was during 2019, which was a horrible year for the industry. In fact, conditions now might even be as bad as they were during the Great Recession. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Craig Fuller, the founder and CEO of FreightWaves, and Rachel Premack, editorial director for FreightWaves, about the state of trucking, what the market says about the broader economy, and what it will take to turn the industry around.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're still in the middle of a "crypto winter" with the price of coins well off their highs from back in 2021. But debates over how to regulate them are heating up, with significant disagreements among US politicians and agency chiefs. At the recent ISDA Annual General Meeting, we sat down with CFTC Chief Rostin Behnam to talk about his view on crypto rules and more. Among the things we discussed are what constitutes a security or a commodity, market structure questions, new types of betting markets, and other matters currently facing the CFTC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Terry Duffy is the chairman and CEO of CME Group, the world's biggest derivatives exchange and a trading behemoth whose name is synonymous with Chicago's financial industry. In this wide-ranging interview, Duffy talks about the big risks in the market he's seeing right now and how the CME is preparing for them. He discusses everything from complaints over a lack of liquidity in Treasury futures, to the impact of the debt ceiling on CME's risk management, interest rate hedging trends in the aftermath of the recent banking crisis, and the exchange's expanding suite of crypto offerings. We also talk about how Duffy is viewing the CME's future in Chicago and, finally, his take on the onion futures debate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming soon: When nerdy gamer Sam Bankman-Fried rocketed to fame as the world’s richest 29-year-old, he pledged to donate his billions to good causes. But then his crypto exchange FTX collapsed Billions of dollars were missing, and Sam was in handcuffs. Those who knew him were left wondering — who was Sam really? A well-meaning billionaire who made a mistake? Or a calculating con man? From Wondery and Bloomberg, the makers of The Shrink Next Door, comes a new story of incredible wealth, betrayal and what happens when “doing good” goes really really bad. Learn more here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spellcaster-the-fall-of-sam-bankman-fried/id1685258534See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 2010s saw the rise of a number of digital media startups like BuzzFeed News, Gawker Media, Vice, Business Insider and others who were set to usher in a new era of news consumption, displacing legacy outlets like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Now, by and large, that dream seems to have died. Gawker is gone. BuzzFeed News is closed. Vice has filed for bankruptcy. Insider recently had layoffs. So how did it all fall apart and what is the future for upstart media? In this episode, we speak with Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Semafor and the author of the new book Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral, to discuss his experience as the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, and how times have changed so dramatically for online journalism. We also discussed what business models work today, the use of AI, and the future of news consumption.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve has hiked rates rapidly over the last 18 months, and yet inflation remains surprisingly high. Perhaps what's most surprising is that even in the most rate sensitive area of the economy -- housing -- the surge in mortgage rates hasn't had a significant cooling effect. Prices have barely budged and even the homebuilders have been booming again after a brief dip in late 2022. So what is happening now? Why did the rate shock fail to derail the industry? And what is the lesson that homebuilders have taken away from this cycle? On this episode, we speak with Zonda chief economist Ali Wolf about why and how the housing market is still broken despite this rate action.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nobody knows for sure who is going to make all the money when it comes to artificial intelligence. Will it be the incumbent tech giants? Will it be startups? What will the business models look like? It's all up in the air. One thing is clear though — AI requires a lot of computing power and that means demand for semiconductors. Right now, Nvidia has been a huge winner in the space, with their chips powering both the training of AI models (like ChatGPT) and the inference (the results of a query.) But others want in on the action as well. So how big will this market be? Can other companies gain a foothold and "chip away" at Nvidia's dominance? On this episode we speak with Bernstein semiconductor analyst Stacy Rasgon about this rapidly growing space and who has a shot to win it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Disruptions caused by the pandemic have revealed deep flaws in our supply chain for physical goods. Certain market failures that have been left to fester for years were suddenly exposed. But some parts of the economy were broken long before the pandemic, particularly anything having to do with care work. Various forms of childcare, daycare, eldercare and healthcare have seen costs explode, with services unevenly distributed, even as those working in the care economy often remain poorly compensated. On this episode, we speak to economist Nancy Folbre, professor emerita of economics at UMass-Amherst and director of the Program on Gender and Care Work at the Political Economy Research Institute, about why such crucial services are so broken in America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some supply chain crises are acute. A bottleneck at the ports. A shortage of semiconductors. These can get fixed, to some extent, with concerted policy choices. But other crises are slower moving and don't have one easy fix. In the coming years, the bourbon supply chain could be under threat, due to a shortage of the specific type of wood used in the barrels made for aging the liquor. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Penn State University forestry professor Calvin Norman about a looming shortage of critical white oak. He explains why the industry is potentially facing a shortfall, why other woods can’t be used to replace it, and what it would take to ensure that this critical tree remains abundant.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's been a lot of discussion about the possibility of "de-dollarization," or the idea that the world could move away from using the dollar as the de facto global reserve currency. Some of this desire makes sense. Not only has the Federal Reserve been hiking rates at the fastest pace in decades, which puts economic pressure on other countries through links to the dollar and US trade, but sanctions imposed on Russia have also made some nations more wary of relying on US financial assets and infrastructure. And in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), there seems to be growing appetite to usurp the dollar’s hegemony. Of course, we've seen this kind of talk before, yet there has been little change to the dollar's special role. So is it different this time? On this episode, we speak with Paul McNamara, an investment director at GAM and a veteran of emerging markets, about what's driving this renewed clamor for de-dollarization.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The big headlines from March's banking crisis have receded and balances at some of the Federal Reserve's emergency lending facilities, like the discount window, are starting to fall. But if you look closely, there are still signs of strain in the depths of the financial system. And of course, there are still plenty of worries about whether deposit outflows from banks will lead to a broader credit crunch that could tip the US economy into recession. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Ben Emons, senior portfolio manager at NewEdge Wealth and a longtime portfolio manager at Pimco, about what the banking drama means for everything from US mortgage rates to the vast "repo" market that's often described as the plumbing of the financial system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marijuana has been legalized in a number of places in the US now, but what New York is trying to do with its legal weed market is somewhat unique. Not only is the state trying to use legalized weed to raise tax revenue and create a new industry with lots of new jobs, it’s also trying to use its legalized cannabis market to rectify some of the wrongs of the past. In the third and final episode of this special Odd Lots series, we speak to those who have been affected by historic attitudes and policies towards drugs, and some of the state officials who are now trying to right these past injustices. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In some respects, selling legalized cannabis should be like many other consumer goods business. You make a product people recognize and then sell it to as many of them as possible. But even if attitudes towards pot -- and the laws that govern it -- are changing in the US, there are still a ton of issues facing this new market. In the second episode of this three-part Odd Lots series, we take a closer look at the business of big cannabis. How are multi-state operators working out in places that legalized medical and recreational marijuana years ago? What are the opportunities and challenges of this new industry? And what do they say about the future of the New York market?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New York City has long been seen as a holy grail for the legal weed industry, with millions of potential customers. And last year New York state started handing out licenses for its first recreational cannabis shops, the culmination of a series of moves that have seen marijuana decriminalized after decades of being illegal. So how is this new legal weed market supposed to work in a city with a long and complicated history with drugs, and what are the considerations going into its creation? In this first episode of a special Odd Lots series, we take a deep dive into what's going on with the legalized marijuana market in New York. We’ll spend three episodes exploring what the birth of this market looks like, how these businesses are setting up, and finally how New York is trying to address the social inequities of the past. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over time, we expect the world to get richer. Yes, there are disruptions and setbacks (and we have seen several large ones in the last few years) but the expectation is to see growth and an increase in material wealth. And yet for years, many countries around the world have seen stagnation or outright reversal — particularly once you exclude East Asia. On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Henry Williams and David Oks, the authors of a recent piece in the journal American Affairs about what they call The Long, Slow Death of Global Development. They argue that traditional development models, particularly those built around manufacturing, have failed much of the world, with little prospect of improvement anytime soon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In August of last year, the White House signed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, a bipartisan effort to bring more advanced semiconductor manufacturing onto US shores. Of course, it already has plenty of critics. There are concerns that the bill is being larded up with red tape, or non-core progressive priorities, that will undermine the bill. On this episode, we speak to two leaders playing key roles in the act's implementation. Mike Schmidt, director of the CHIPS Program Office, and Todd Fisher, the program's chief investment officer, join us to talk about the act's goals, what's been achieved so far, and why they believe it can succeed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the last month or so, two macro risks have become top of mind for investors. One is the stability of regional banks. The other is the weakness in the commercial real estate market. On some level, they're separate stories, but they're also linked, since regional banks tend to do more commercial real estate lending than larger, national banks. Of course, the links are complicated. CRE is not a monolith — and banks are just one source of financing for CRE projects, alongside private credit funds, insurance companies and other sources of capital. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Jim Costello, chief economist for real assets at MSCI, about what to watch for.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nassim Taleb has never been shy about expressing his viewpoints on a wide range of topics. But lately he's been getting into verbal tussles with people who have long looked up to his wisdom. Whether it's Bitcoiners, venture capitalists, deadlifters, or anti-vaxxers, many people within these communities have admired his philosophy of antifragility. So why has he taken to arguing with them on Twitter? What exactly are they getting wrong about his ideas? And for that matter, why has he himself gotten into cycling lately? In this wide ranging conversation, the author of books such as Antifragile, The Black Swan, and Fooled by Randomness talks about all these topics and more — including how to think about reducing tail risk in one's own life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the most part, being a landlord, particularly in a major city, has been a good business to be in. Rents historically just go up — as do property prices. And there are multiple other ways to make money, as well. Plus, historically, politicians didn’t care much about the rights of renters, focusing much more on the concerns of homeowners. But the politics might be changing. And if the politics are changing, then the economics may change, too. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Ben Carlos Thypin, a residential and commercial landlord in New York City, who tells us the golden age of being a landlord is over and why he plans to get out of residential real estate completely.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the big mysteries in markets right now is why risk assets rallied so strongly into the new year even as policymakers were adamant that they would continue to go hard on inflation by raising rates. Sure, there have been some recent signs of a "soft" or even "no landing" scenario, but a lot of the price action seemed pretty dramatic, with investors dashing back to meme and tech stocks that were beaten down last year. Matt King, Citigroup strategist and Odd Lots favorite, has one explanation for the recent "dash for trash." He argues that even though many central banks around the world have announced that they're winding down several years of extraordinarily loose monetary policies, they've actually been adding liquidity to the financial system in recent months — almost $1 trillion of it. Now he says that extra liquidity is going away and it isn't at all clear if private businesses and investment will fill the gap.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The tech world is in a precarious moment. Valuations are down. The IPO window seems shut. SPACs are a thing of the past. And the industry's pre-eminent bank just went bust. So what now? Where are the opportunities and what should people look for? On this episode, we speak with Betsy Cohen, the veteran dealmaker, SPAC innovator, and the co-founder and chairman of investment firm Cohen Circle. We discuss the state of the tech market and how Silicon Valley Bank failed at Banking 101.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Silicon Valley Bank failed, the government stepped in and guaranteed that all accounts — even those well above the FDIC threshold for deposit insurance — would be made whole. So now people are wondering whether all accounts at every bank are implicitly guaranteed, regardless of their size. But if they are, then what is the point of private, for-profit retail banking? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Saule Omarova, a professor at Cornell Law School. She had been nominated by President Biden to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, but was forced to withdraw due to fierce opposition from the banking lobby. That opposition was based, in part, on her endorsement of public checking accounts at the Federal Reserve. But what was a seemingly "out there" view a year ago, is now firmly within the Overton Window of political possibilities. On this episode, we discuss the SVB disaster, what it means for banking, and the case for a public option.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Markets are suddenly on edge due to strains in the financial system. But banks aren't the only source of stress. Pockets of the commercial real estate market — which is worth around $20 trillion — are showing cracks as well. Higher interest rates are one factor, but also a lot of commercial office space is still not at pre-Covid capacity levels, putting pressure on income. So where are the trouble spots? And who is holding the bag? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Rich Hill, head of real estate strategy & research at Cohen & Steers, about the state of the market.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Zero- and one-day options give investors the ability to bet on the daily moves of the S&P 500. In recent months, both big institutional investors and retail traders have gotten in on the action, creating a boom in trading volumes of these short-lived contracts and sparking an intense debate over their effect on the market. So what exactly is driving their popularity and why are some Wall Street analysts so divided on whether such options will cause a rerun of the “volmageddon” that we saw back in early 2018 and that caused a big drop in stocks? Nomura Securities International Inc. strategist Charlie McElligott walks us through these new trading contracts, explaining how they work, why people are snapping them up, and what their impact on the market could be.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whenever a major financial institution collapses and needs a bailout, it's easy to say, "Where were the regulators?" But that's only a useful question if you can pinpoint the specific regulatory choices that led to any particular situation. So what caused Silicon Valley Bank to implode? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Columbia Law School professor Lev Menand, who discusses the defanging of bank supervisors in the run-up to this fiasco. With proper oversight, someone might have caught and put a stop to the unique set of risks the bank was taking. But without proper oversight, they were encouraged to go for all-out growth, regardless of the ultimate social cost. We also discuss legislative changes over time that led to this buildup of risk.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Silicon Valley bank collapsed at record speed. And the world is still trying to figure out what went wrong? How did a bank with a strong history, a strong brand, and a fairly conservative investment portfolio go belly up so fast? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Dan Davies, a Managing Director of Frontline Associates, who previously worked as a bank analyst. He explains why the bank's customer base turned out to be so much more flighty than expected, and why the bank reached for yield buying long-dated Treasuries at a time of ultra-low interest rates. We discuss what to watch next, and why he's concerned that the initial salvo to stanch the bank run may not be enough.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the short term, the Federal Reserve's job is straightforward. Raise or lower interest rates in order to meet its employment and inflation targets. But over the years, it has evolved to do a lot more than just set the price of short-term bank borrowing. With each successive crisis, the Fed has taken on new powers and responsibilities to stabilize finance, markets and the broader economy. And with Washington characterized by partisan gridlock, the Fed is seen as the one entity that can actually move with some agility when it's needed. On this episode, we speak with Jeanna Smialek, a Fed reporter at the New York Times, and the author of the new book Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes on a New Age of Crisis, about the history of the Fed and how it became so powerful.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The persistence of inflation is a bit of a mystery to economists. Many of the shocks of the last few years have faded. And the Fed has raised rates aggressively, with seemingly only a modest impact. So why are companies still raising prices? If you listen, they actually explain a lot of their reasoning on corporate conference calls. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Samuel Rines, managing director at Corbu, who has gone through numerous transcripts and come to the conclusion that management teams are still being rewarded for "price over volume" strategies. Companies in this environment are happy to sacrifice a bit of volume sales in order to keep moving through large price increases. He walks us through what he's learned from companies like Wingstop, Tractor Supply, and PepsiCo. And he talks about what you should expect to see when the inflationary urge finally starts to crest.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Crypto is facing two distinct, yet related problems. First, a bunch of people have lost money due to the decline in coin prices and the collapse of major firms, such as FTX. At the same time, regulatory scrutiny is also increasing. And of course, the reason that scrutiny is increasing is in part due all the lost money. So how is the industry dealing with all this? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Brian Armstrong, the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, the biggest crypto exchange in the US. He talks about the trajectory of the industry, where he sees it going, the impediments it faces, and much more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Homebuilders have experienced major whiplash over the last few years. The pandemic originally caused them to slam the brakes on new development. Then the housing boom happened and they raced to catch up and build — but then they ran into supply-chain constraints. Then in 2022, the interest rate shock put the market into a freeze. But before that building can begin, how do developers find completely unused land and turn it into new homes? Who takes on that risk? Who buys and brokers that land? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Chase Emmerson, the co-CEO of Emmerson Holdings, an Arizona-based boutique land investor. He explains the process of securing land, getting it permitted for development, obtaining water rights, and more. He also walks us through what he's seeing in the housing market right now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The vast majority of urban apartments in the US are geared towards single occupants, couples without kids or maybe young professionals with roommates. It's hard to find apartments with the kind of layout that would fit families. Anyone who's gone looking for that type of space is probably familiar with bedrooms that look and feel like closets, or if you do find an apartment that has multiple good-sized bedrooms, it probably costs a fortune. So why is this the case? Why is so much apartment construction skewed towards non-families, and why does there seem to be an inherent assumption in the real estate market that families will always want to live in houses out in the suburbs? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we explore the hidden incentives and regulations that deter builders from making more family-friendly buildings. We speak with real estate developer Bobby Fijan, and also Stephen Jacob Smith, executive director at the Center for Building in North America, for their perspective.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve has been raising benchmark borrowing rates at the fastest pace in decades, but the interest rate paid out to millions of people with bank accounts is still stuck at almost zero. According to data from Bankrate, the average interest rate on savings accounts is just 0.23%. So what's going on? Why have many banks so far avoided raising what they pay out to depositors even as the Fed hikes, and will that eventually change? What does it mean for the financial system and also economic policy given that higher rates are, in theory, supposed to encourage less spending and more saving in order to curb higher inflation? On this episode, we dig deep into the making of bank deposit rates with Barclays strategist Joe Abate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been one year since Russia invaded Ukraine in an event that set off a chain reaction of both geopolitical and economic consequences. So what have we learned from the past twelve months? And what is the future of this ongoing conflict? On this episode, we speak with Robert Papp, a retired senior executive at the CIA about what to watch when it comes to the weeks and months ahead. Before joining the CIA, Robert was a cryptologist in the US Navy and also studied Russian and Russia's economic history. He walks us through key questions, including how things are going for either side, and the role of both economic and information warfare in the conflict.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Biden came into office with an incredibly slim legislative majority. And yet despite just 50 Democratic seats in the Senate, the first two years of Biden's Presidency saw the passage of some extremely ambitious laws. The potential exists for the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act to reshape the economy in ways that we haven't seen in a long time. Brian Deese has been the head of the National Economic Council these last two years, and was thus directly involved in the passage and shaping of these laws. So what will they accomplish, and how will they ultimately be judged. We spoke to Brian in his final week in the NEC role about this new era of "industrial strategy", and what he learned during this two-year stint.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US is in the middle of another debt ceiling fight. The expectation is that it will get lifted before we hit the so called "drop dead" date — but what happens if Congress does not authorize more debt financing? What are the options for the government? Does this automatically lead to default? And if the US does default on its debt, what does that mean for the financial system and the real economy? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with George Pearkes, macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group, about how the debt limit actually works, and we attempt to get an understanding of what to expect if we reach this uncharted territory.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US labor market looks rock solid. The unemployment rate is at its lowest level in 50 years, while layoffs continue to trend downward. But there's one glaring exception and that's the tech industry. Nearly every major tech company has announced layoffs in the last few months, which is exactly the opposite of how things played out over the last decade, when the sector was a bright spot in an otherwise sluggish job market. So what's going on? Why now? Who is getting cut? And will these tech workers quickly find new jobs? Can they apply their skills to the burgeoning AI space? On this episode of the podcast, we bring back Patrick McKenzie, the author of the Bits About Money newsletter, who previously worked at Stripe for six years. He talks about the current trends in tech employment and why it's still a good idea to become an engineer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, the work of John Maynard Keynes experienced a revival, as people sought answers to the problem of sluggish growth. In this cycle, sluggish growth isn't the problem. If anything, you hear business leaders and central bankers talking about the labor market being "too hot," and the need for the unemployment rate to rise. So what explains the current dynamic? And how can we sustain a hot economy without the pain of inflation? Perhaps the work of the lesser-known Polish economist Michał Kalecki holds the answers. Like Keynes, he also viewed the free market as being inherently unstable, but he came to different conclusions about why. He also explored the political economy of full employment and why this condition frustrates business leaders. On this episode, we speak with Jan Toporowski, professor of Economics and Finance at SOAS University of London, about Kalecki's work and how it can help us understand today's economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The new season of Bloomberg's Foundering podcast retraces the life and gruesome death of John McAfee. In the 1980s and ’90s, the McAfee name was synonymous with computer antivirus software, and he helped establish the modern cybersecurity industry. But afterward, his life took a strange and dark turn. He was accused of murder, an allegation he denied, and then went on the lam. He sought to reinvent himself as a cryptocurrency guru and as a candidate for US president. Reporter Jamie Tarabay interviews McAfee’s colleagues, acquaintances, investigators and family members to demystify lies he told throughout his life, reveal the secrets he kept and resolve questions surrounding his public and decades-long self-destruction.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the fastest pace in decades in 2022. But despite the rapid shift in borrowing costs, not much in the financial system actually 'broke.' Stocks and other risk assets went down, but aside from a few issues like the gilt market drama in October, we didn't see a big systemic event. On this episode of Odd Lots, which was recorded live at the Credit Market Structure Alliance conference in New York, we speak with Fabio Natalucci about how he's thinking of financial risk right now. Fabio is the Deputy Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department at the International Monetary Fund and he writes the IMF's annual financial stability report. He walks us through the key risks he sees as still lurking in the system, as well as what's changed since 2008.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a decade of dominance, 2022 saw tech stocks badly underperform the rest of the market. However, so far in 2023, tech stocks and other speculations have surged again. According to Steve Eisman, what we're seeing is the natural process by which a "paradigm shift" is playing out in stocks. Eisman, a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, won big betting against CDOs during the Great Financial Crisis and was famously depicted in the book and movie The Big Short as one of the few investors who got it right. In this conversation, he talks about lessons learned from his career in investing, how and why big shifts happen in markets, the state of the financial system, and what sectors could win over the next decade.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was looking bad there for awhile for Team Transitory. Anyone who had previously even uttered the word "transitory" in regards to inflation was regretting having used it. But lately the term is creeping back in, particularly as inflation decelerates while the unemployment rate remains low. So was the transitory perspective right all along? And is the fabled "soft landing" actually here? Macquarie Capital strategist Viktor Shvets believes it is. On this episode, the return Odd Lots guest gives his view of the economy and why he never gave up on his transitory stance. He talks about why inflation is falling and how many sources of anxiety — from geopolitical risk to deglobalization — won't materialize in the manner that many people are expecting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rent inflation went wild in 2021 and 2022, turning it into one of the most substantial drivers of overall inflation. But good news: it seems pretty clear that rents are now finally falling. Private sector measures, from companies like Apartment List and Zillow are starting to show a clear decline. So what's changed? How hard could rents drop? And could a renter in a place like New York City actually get a rent reduction? On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Chris Salviati, the top housing economist at Apartment List, to discuss what's changed and what 2023 has in store.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Southwest Airlines had a disastrous holiday season, thanks in part to a software bug that left crews out of place and grounded thousands of flights. But Southwest isn't alone in having software in the headlines lately. The New York Stock Exchange recently had a software error that caused weird pricing on stocks and the FAA had its own computer issue that grounded planes earlier this month. So what's the deal with corporate software? Why do these crashes happen? And why does the user experience typically leave something to be desired? On this episode of the podcast we speak with Patrick McKenzie, an expert on engineering and infrastructure, who writes the Bits About Money newsletter and recently left payments company Stripe after six years. We talked about the challenges of keeping any software system alive after years of upgrades and updates, the distribution of tech talent across industries, and whether non-tech companies can close the gap with Silicon Valley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The price of eggs rose 60% in 2022, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. Meanwhile, wholesale egg prices are up 300% in the last year, creating a chart that looks almost parabolic. So what's going on? And is there any relief in sight? On this episode, we speak with Glenn Hickman, president of Hickman's Family Farms, an Arizona egg farm with roughly 10 million chickens. Glenn explains why egg prices have been shooting higher, the role of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how farms are responding to the outbreak of avian flu.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the last year, numerous things have gone wrong for the crypto industry. (Too many to list.) But one thing we've learned is that there's an incredibly high degree of interconnectedness between various firms, all borrowing and lending from each other in a way that created a tremendous amount of fragility. A key entity in all this is GBTC, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which was one of the first regulated entities that allowed ordinary investors to get Bitcoin price exposure. Over time, this trust turned into a behemoth, with numerous players making massive leveraged bets on it. On this episode, we speak with Ram Ahulwalia, the CEO of Lumida Wealth, who explains how the fund works, how the trade worked for investors, and why it's ended in tears for so many players.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In economics, there tends to be two dominant ways of thinking about inflation. Either you agree with Milton Friedman, who described inflation as always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon (the result of too much money printing). Or you're more of a New Keynesian who thinks that higher prices are all about the relationship between demand and capacity. In a new paper inspired by Odd Lots and the series of disruptions that have rocked the economy since the global pandemic, UMass Amherst Economics Professor Isabella Weber describes a potential third way of thinking about inflation. She identifies systemically significant sources of inflation, or industries that could end up having a broader impact on a wide variety of prices. The hope is that by identifying these important sources of inflation early, policymakers can put in place measures to make sure price increases don't get out of hand. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While electric vehicle use is growing rapidly, the internal combustion engine remains completely dominant in the world of heavy trucks. At some point in the future, Tesla has a plan to commercialize an electric semi, but nobody really knows when. Meanwhile, other entities are looking to compete in the world of industrial vehicles. Chace Barber is a former trucker in the logging industry, which has some very different characteristics than the type of freight trucking you typically see on a highway. When you're driving over the Rocky Mountains, without easy proximity to mechanics, tow trucks or service stations, you need power and reliability. His company, Edison Motors, is building its own trucks with a hybrid diesel-electric approach that it sees as a better path forward. On this episode, we discuss the challenges of hauling logs, as well as how it's possible for a small entity to get in the game of building such large industrial equipment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The discount window at the Federal Reserve allows banks to borrow money at an above-market rate in exchange for high-quality collateral. The facility is always available to use, but typically nobody does. Not only is the borrowing costlier, there's also a "stigma" associated with its usage, since the perception is that if you use it your institution might be in some kind of financial distress. So why has some entity (or multiple entities) been using it lately? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Bill Nelson, chief economist at the Bank Policy Institute and a former employee of the Federal Reserve who helped design and manage the discount window for 10 years. We discuss what the program is, its history and how it's used today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The most recent jobs report has revived talk that the US economy might pull off the fabled "soft landing." Jobs are still growing nicely and the unemployment rate is at a 50-year low. But wages are decelerating and there are reasons to think that inflation is rolling over as well. So can Jerome Powell & Co. smoothly land the plane, so to speak? On this episode of Odd Lots we speak with Neil Dutta, chief economist at Renaissance Macro Research, and Conor Sen, a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion, about the US macro situation, as well as the rental market and the impact of China's reopening.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks to work from home, and other trends, workers are being electronically monitored by their bosses like never before. But some industries have had experience with this for awhile. Truck drivers, in particular, have been under legally-required electronic monitoring for several years now. Not only are their hours and miles electronically logged, increasingly they're subject to facial cameras and other types of body monitoring. On this episode, we speak with Karen Levy, a professor at Cornell and the author of "Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance" to discuss how surveillance works within the trucking industry, and what it means for everyone else.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in early 2021, Ryan Petersen was one of the first people we spoke to on the Odd Lots podcast about supply chain snarls and high shipping costs. The founder and co-CEO of Flexport has since gone on to become a go-to name in the world of logistics, making headlines after he tweeted about what could be done to fix congestion at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. (A Bloomberg Opinion columnist called it the "tweetstorm that saved Christmas.") But fast forward two years and it seems like we're on the verge of a sharp reversal for the shipping industry, with freight rates now plunging and container traffic to the US down almost 20% last month. On this episode, we talk catch up with Petersen to talk about what he's seeing in the industry right now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this special episode, Tracy and Joe reach into the mailbag and take some questions about Odd Lots, and the things regularly covered on the show. We also hear from our producer Carmen Rodriguez, who joins as a guest host for the episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Odd Lots is seven years old now, having started in late 2015. When it began, we really didn't know what the show was going to be or be about. To end 2022, we decided to revisit our very first episode, when we interviewed our legendary Bloomberg colleague Tom Keene. We talked about how he got into the business, his musical career, hockey, mutual funds, and how he learned to do charts. But we begin with newly recorded discussion about the origins of the podcast and how long ago this first episode now feels. Original version was published November 6th, 2015.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Plastic is in almost everything and prices of polypropylene, polyethylene and a host of other polymers went nuts in 2021, surging to record highs. Now they've come crashing back down to Earth and have reached a two-year low. So what happened to send the price of plastics surging, and why are they falling now? Were plastics a perhaps under-appreciated source of inflation given that they go into practically everything? And where does plastic come from anyway? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Bank of America Commodities Strategist Warren Russell about the wild ride for plastics over the past couple of years, and what it means for the future of the petrochemicals industry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We talk a lot about macroeconomic trends on the podcast. What's happening with inflation? Is the labor market too hot? Will there be a recession next year? On this episode of Odd Lots, we take a closer look at how one business is dealing with these economic trends right now, and what its experience says about the economy as a whole. Ken Jarosch is the owner of Jarosch Bakery, which has been operating in the suburbs of Chicago for more than five decades. He's been dealing on the ground with all the things we talk about on the show: supply chains, commodity prices, labor forces. We discuss how he sets pricing for cookies, cakes and donuts as input costs surge, whether he's hiring new workers today, and if he's seeing any slowdown in customer demand.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week was a big one. On Tuesday, we got a CPI report that came in substantially cooler than expected. Then on Wednesday, the Fed hiked 50 basis points, which was a step down from the series of 75 basis point hikes that we had been getting at recent meetings. So where do things stand now? When will we get a proper pivot? When will the Fed feel confident that inflation has been defeated. We spoke with two macro guests: Jon Turek, founder of JST Advisors and author of the Cheap Convexity Blog, as well as Tim Duy, Chief US Economist at SGH Macro as well as a Professor of Practice in economics at the University or Oregon. They gave as their readings on inflation, the Fed, and what to watch at the start of 2023. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US financial system today is pretty much taken as a given. We have the Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates and provides various liquidity backstops. We have regulated banks, which lend and create money and have access to the Fed. And we have non-bank financial activity that falls under the nebulous umbrella of "shadow banking." But how did we actually end up with this system? And why did policymakers design it the way they did? On this episode, which was recorded live at Bloomberg's New York office on Nov. 29, we speak with Josh Younger and Lev Menand. They are research partners who have delved into the big questions about the structure of modern banking, the history that has shaped it into what it is today, and what its design actually means for the economy and society.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2022 has seen numerous crypto disasters, most notably FTX. Also the price of most coins has tumbled massively. One coin that's done fine is the stablecoin Tether, which is interesting, because its had so many naysayers for so long. There are even hedge funds who have bet on its implosion. But what is Tether? How does it work? And where does it come from? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Bennett Tomlin, co-host of the Crypto Critics' Corner podcast, who has an encyclopedic knowledge about the company. He walks us through what we know about the entity, and its relationship with other entities in crypto.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes, floods... in a year of commodity shortages and supply chain disruptions, a host of extreme weather events have added stress to the system. So how do companies address the financial risks associated with these events? Catastrophe bonds and reinsurance markets have existed for a long time, but the more extreme the disruptions, the more these industries change. On this episode of the podcast, we speak to Steve Evans, owner and editor-in-chief of Artemis.BM, about recent developments, new types of insurance products and how financial markets are incorporating the effects of climate change.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're in the aftermath of an extraordinary bubble in cryptocurrencies and the collapse of FTX is a defining chapter of the industry's turmoil. But what does history tells us about the cycle of bubbles and busts? Which past manias are the most similar to what we've just seen? In this episode, we speak with Brad DeLong, an economic historian at the University of California at Berkeley, who is also the author of the new book, "Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century." He explains how the FTX saga shares shocking similarities with the story of the South Sea Company, a British endeavor that was at the center of a massive mania of speculation in the early 1700s.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China has seen a surge in protests in cities all around the country, targeted at the country's Covid Zero policies. But nearly three years into this pandemic, why did they happen now? How does recent economic weakness factor into the demonstrations? And why did the government allow them to go on in the first place? On this episode, we speak with Victor Shih, a professor at the School of Global Policy & Strategy at UC San Diego and author of the new book, Coalitions of the Weak: Elite Politics in China from Mao’s Stratagem to the Rise of Xi. Shih explains this perilous moment for China, as it navigates the pandemic, a real estate bust and other assorted economic stresses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The US economy may not be in a recession, but Silicon Valley, which had a mega-boom throughout the 2010s, is in a downturn. Tech stocks have tanked and almost every day there are new reports about industry layoffs. So what happens next? What happens to its unique corporate culture? What happens to management and employees? On this episode, we speak with Margaret O'Mara, a professor at the University of Washington and the author of the book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. We talk about the history of Silicon Valley's upside-down moments and how the industries that have dominated the region have changed over time, particularly as government money comes in and out of the picture.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this year we talked to the legendary short seller Jim Chanos, during which he warned of more pain ahead for speculative areas of tech. That call proved to be prescient by a number of measures. So where are things now? We spoke to Chanos again at the recent Berkeley Forum on Corporate Governance in San Francisco. We discussed frauds, crypto, and the pro-cyclical effects of stock-based compensation. Note: This episode was recorded on November 9th, 2022. We're publishing our usual Thursday episode one day early due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years we've been hearing about a persistent shortage of truck drivers. But what if we're thinking about it wrong? What if the issue is that the shipping industry systematically mistreats or undervalues drivers, creating an ongoing and unsustainable churn? On this episode, we speak with Gord Magill, a longtime truck driver and the author of the Autonomous Truck(er)s Substack, about one persistent problem: truck drivers wasting countless hours in "detention" at loading sites, a time for which they don't actually get paid. Magill explains how this is reflective of broader trends within the industry that devalue drivers and contribute to an inefficient supply chain.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was on an episode of the Odd Lots podcast in April 2022 that Sam Bankman-Fried infamously characterized yield farming as a "box," in a metaphor that made the practice sound a lot like a ponzi scheme. Of course, in the wake of the collapse of his two main firms — FTX and Alameda Research — that conversation looks more and more like a huge red flag, but also provides insight into the shaky finances of his crypto empire. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine was also a guest on that episode and he joins us again this week to discuss where we are in the fallout out of the FTX saga.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried empire is gigantic, sprawling and fast moving. While details are still coming out, it already ranks among the most prominent corporate disasters of all time and has left the entire crypto community reeling. To better understand the role that FTX played in the industry and how the exchange started to unravel, we speak with two guests on this episode. First, we have Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and CEO of the crypto market-making firm Wintermute, to explain how he used the FTX platform and how he understood its relationship with SBF's trading firm, Alameda Research. Then we speak with independent researcher James Block, author of the Dirty Bubble Media newsletter, and one of the first observers to blow the whistle on the FTX disaster.Stay tuned. On Friday, we'll have a special follow-up interview with Bloomberg Opinion's Matt Levine, who also appeared with Sam Bankman-Fried on the now-infamous “yield farming” episode of Odd Lots in April 2022.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We talk a lot about the US shale boom. And we talk a lot about OPEC. But one of the most exciting stories in the global oil industry is the incredible rise of Guyana, which has seen a massive amount of oil discovery over the past several years. This oil boom has made the South American country one of the fastest growing economies in the world. So what does history say about the emergence of a new oil superpower? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with oil historian Gregory Brew about the Guyana story, and what happens when so much new oil is being produced outside of OPEC.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The surge in gas costs in Europe threatens to impose massive pain on households and cripple energy-intensive heavy industry. So there has been a lot of urgency on the part of governments to figure out a way to ease the pain. Of course, when the problem is a scarcity of energy itself, you can't just throw money at the problem. You can't print more gas molecules. On this episode, we speak with Isabella Weber, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who has been serving on an independent government commission in Germany to formulate a plan to ease the burden. We discuss her work and how price controls in energy play out in practice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are a bunch of historical analogies that people like to reach for in order to describe some of the economic trends we're seeing today. There's obviously the period of high inflation in the 1970s and early 1980s, or the disruptions caused by the Spanish Flu pandemic around 1918. But there's also a single year -- 1953 -- which not only contains some eerie similarities to today's economic environment, but also ended up having far-reaching consequences that reverberate all the way to 2022. On this episode, Josh Younger, JPMorgan's global head of asset and liability management research and strategy, tells the origin story of the decisions made in 1953 that helped create the vast repurchase or repo market. At a time when there are plenty of concerns over the stability of the market for US bonds, we go back in time to explore the reasons why repo exist at all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After years of basically printing money, the big online Internet behemoths are starting to stumble for various reasons. There's the macro slowdowns. New competition. And just basic threats to the way they do business. One major change has come from Apple, which has used its device dominance to curtail how apps can collect information on users, making targeting harder than it used to be. On this episode we speak to Bloomberg reporter Mark Bergen, the author of Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination, about the difficult challenges facing the industry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's no secret that a strong US dollar causes the rest of the world pain, but the impact of this year's rally is shaping up to be a bit different than previous episodes of dollar strength. Hyun Song Shin is the Economic Adviser and Head of Research for the Bank for International Settlements, which has just published a bulletin outlining why this particular dollar cycle is so unique. Shin has also done a ton of previous academic research on this exact topic — examining what happens to global trade and business investment when the dollar hits its highs. In this conversation, we talk to him about the impact of the dollar rally, what could stop it and what policymakers around the world can do to cope.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Midwest has been gripped by drought this year and water levels on the Mississippi River have fallen to their lowest marks in decades. That's bad news for farmers growing crops and for anyone trying to actually move those crops down the river to buyers. On this episode, we speak with grains expert and president of Ostebur & Associates, Ben Scholl, about the latest supply chain snarl in the US. We also speak with Mercury Group CEO Anton Posner and President Margo Brock about the important role that the Mississippi plays in the global supply chain. They walk us through the potential impact on a number of commodities — including steel, coal and other vital resources — and why the disruption might reverberate for some time to come.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people think about the so-called 'gig economy' they probably first think about Uber. But truck drivers are arguably the original gig workers. And driving a truck is one of the biggest professions in the US. So how should laws designed to protect the rights of gig workers apply to the trucking industry? And what do truck drivers actually want? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Rachel Premack, the editorial director at Freightwaves and the author of the MODES newsletter, to understand the legal ambiguities and how they relate to deregulation efforts that are multiple decades old.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US mortgage rates have jumped to a two-decade high, with the average 30-year home loan now running above 7%. Of course, this makes sense. The Federal Reserve is raising benchmark interest rates and that's supposed to translate into a tightening of financial conditions, which includes housing credit. But the jump in mortgage rates far exceeds the increase in benchmarks, with the difference between average mortgage rates and the yield on equivalent US Treasuries at its highest on record. So what's going on? On this episode, we speak with Guillermo Roditi Dominguez, managing director at New River Investments, about what's happening deep in the market for mortgage-backed bonds to make rates surge this much. As he describes it, a sea change is helping to keep borrowing rates extra high.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration unveiled a new set of restrictions on exporting semiconductors and related technology to China. The actions are seen as a significant escalation of an ongoing effort to constrain China's domestic chip ambitions. But semiconductor diplomacy and limitations on their export have existed almost since the industry was born. So what are the effects of these new actions? How severe are they? And to what degree do they actually set back China's efforts to develop its own technology? On this episode, we speak to Chris Miller, a professor at the Fletcher School and the author of the new book Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology. He explains the significance of the move and puts it into historical context.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alberta is one of Canada's most conservative provinces, with an economy and culture that might be compared to Texas. However despite this lean, the Alberta NDP, a social-democratic party, has been able to find electoral success. That may be owed to where the party deviates from other left-of-center parties — namely its more friendly stance towards the oil and gas industry, which is crucial to the Alberta economy. In this episode, we speak to party leader Rachel Notley, who served as Alberta premier from 2015 through 2019, before returning to the opposition. She talks about how the party views the oil and gas industry and how it fits in with maintaining climate commitments.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nouriel Roubini is known for his bearish prognostications. And unfortunately, he still doesn't see any good news on the horizon. In fact, things are going to get much worse, says the famous economist and author of the new book "MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How to Survive Them." He believes that due to a rolling series of supply shocks, some of which are still unfolding, we'll have a severe downturn before we get relief from inflation. Unlike the 1970s he says, high levels of private sector debt will make it harder to fight higher prices, and that central banks will reverse course as things start to break in financial markets. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jigar Shah is the director of the loan office at the Department of Energy. For years, this division has had a modest amount of money, which it used to provide financing to promising projects in energy technology. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the loan office now has hundreds of billions of dollars at its disposal in order to build up US energy supply and accelerate the shift to renewables. We talked Jigar about how he plans to scale up his office and deploy that money in a productive way. Recorded on September 7th, 2022.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Chinese government's biggest political gathering comes at a time of numerous challenges.Next week will see a major gathering of China's top officials known as the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. This event only happens twice every decade, and this particular Congress is happening at an extraordinary time for both the Chinese government and the country. Not only are officials grappling with the impact of strict pandemic-related restrictions known as Covid Zero, but they're also facing turmoil in the economy and the real estate sector. At the same time, external pressures are picking up, with the US recently imposing sweeping curbs on the way semiconductor companies do business with China. So what's on the agenda for this major political event and what can it tell us about the future direction of the Chinese economy? Dan Wang, China technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, joins us to discuss.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks to the surge in mortgage rates, we've seen a historic collapse in mortgage affordability. New homebuyers are facing a massive sticker shock relative to what they could have paid just six months ago. So does this mean that house prices are due for a crash? On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Morgan Stanley housing strategist Jim Egan about what comes next. Egan argues that while high mortgage rates will discourage buyers, there won't be a significant unlocking of supply, since very few people will be forced to sell. It will be housing activity that sees the biggest change.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UK financial assets just experienced once-in-a-generation type moves in the wake of the government's mini-budget announcement. Not only did both gilts and the pound sell off dramatically, they rebounded just as dramatically after intervention from the Bank of England. What does it all mean? And how did pension accounting contribute to the massive volatility? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we spoke with Toby Nangle, an economics and markets commentator, who spent several years running asset allocation at Columbia Threadneedle. He explains why we saw such a dramatic move and what the whole thing taught us about market structure.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the biggest drivers of inflation is rent. Arguably, it's the whole ballgame right now. If rent growth stays firm, it's hard to see inflation getting back to the Federal Reserve's intended target anytime soon. If it rolls over, then maybe that will allow the Fed to breathe a little bit easier. But signals about the future direction of rents are mixed. While the government data is red hot, various private surveys do show some easing. On this episode, we speak with Omair Sharif, the founder of Inflation Insights, who walks us through rent prices and how the numbers are gathered. He also discusses a key change coming to the measured price of healthcare that will likely be a significant drag on inflation in the year ahead.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a widespread expectation of a surge in prices for numerous commodities. That happened initially, but by and large things have not played out the way many investors would have anticipated. So what did markets get wrong? And what are they getting wrong now? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Marko Papic, a geopolitical expert and the chief strategist at Clocktower Group. He offers his view that the war is entering a stage of stasis and stability that will persist for some time to come. He also spoke about why China continues to pursue a Covid Zero strategy, despite the seemingly high cost to the economy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Europe is facing an energy crisis and there are some dire predictions about how it will deal with the upcoming winter, when demand for electricity and heating oil are expected to surge. But commodities trader Pierre Andurand sees a path for Europe to survive without Russia's fuel. He suggests that LNG imports can make up a significant amount of lost Russian oil and gas, while simple actions like turning down the thermostat and turning off the lights, can make a big difference to the region's overall supply and demand imbalance. He also talks about the "broken" oil market — where prices may move by $10 on seemingly little news — and how that's impacted his own trading. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stablecoin regulation has become a hot topic, and for very good reason. For one thing, it's an extremely fast growing space. Stablecoins are also a primary way that the crypto interacts with the banking system. And beyond that, as we know, crises often originate from assets that promise to be safe (remember money market mutual funds that broke the buck during the 2008 financial crisis. But are regulators equipped to deal with stablecoins under existing law? On this episode, we speak with Timothy Massad, the former chair of the CFTC and a current research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He explains why he believes regulatory progress can be made right now with the laws that currently exist, and what a new arrangement for issuers would look like.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years, it's been on the Ethereum roadmap to transition its blockchain from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. Well, it's finally happened. This means that there are no more "miners" validating blocks on the Ethereum network. Instead, they've been replaced with "stakers" or "validators" who manage the network's rules by posting coins as a type of bond or security deposit. Why is that such a big deal for the industry? And what does it say about the future of crypto? On this episode, we speak with Christine Kim, a research associate at Galaxy Digital, who walks us through the significance of "the merge," how validation works and what's next for Ethereum.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cryptocurrencies often don't fit neatly into traditional asset buckets. They're not exactly currencies. They're not exactly commodities. And while many share commonalities with stocks, there are differences there as well. As such, US regulators haven't come up with clear rules on their trading and issuance, leaving entrepreneurs and investors in limbo. On this episode, we're joined by Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, who has been harshly critical of the SEC's approach, particularly under current Chairman Gary Gensler. The Senator also talks about his own legislative proposals to start providing more clarity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar has found a new level of fame over the last year, arguing that we're witnessing the birth of a new currency regime that he calls "Bretton Woods 3.0". In this new era, the centrality of the dollar will fade, in favor of commodities or commodity-backed currencies. But not everyone is convinced. And in fact one skeptic is Pozsar's own close collaborator Perry Mehrling, who is now a professor at Boston University. In a special live episode of the podcast, recorded in front of an audience, we were joined by Pozsar and Mehrling, who debated Pozsar's thesis and the future of the dollar more broadly.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To the surprise of many people, the Biden administration has notched some significant economic policy wins this year. The CHIPS Act represents a major piece of industrial policy aimed at bolstering the US semiconductor sector and making the supply chain more resilient. Meanwhile, the Inflation Reduction Act puts a lot of money towards a range of energy options, with a particular focus on advancing renewables. Ezra Klein, the New York Times Opinion columnist and host of "The Ezra Klein Show," has been a major proponent of "supply-side liberalism," or the idea that Democratic policy aims should focus more on building out supply-side capacity, as opposed to simply redistributing demand. On this episode, we talk about the politics and economics of this endeavor.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, China arguably led the world out of the downturn. Its gigantic fiscal stimulus not only boosted domestic growth, it also created an incredible amount of demand for commodities all around the world. Today the story is different. The government's Covid Zero policies have been a drag on growth and the real estate sector is deeply troubled, with a rise in homebuyers refusing to make mortgage payments. On top of that, the country is experiencing searing heat and drought. So how bad is it? Are things meaningfully worse than in previous downturns? To understand more, we speak with Tom Orlik, Chief Economist at Bloomberg Economics and author of the book "China: The Bubble that Never Pops." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a hawkish speech intended to leave no ambiguity about the Fed's commitment to defeating inflation. But what does that mean in practice? How aggressively will the Fed have to hike? And how much pain will the economy endure as a result of it? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Neel Kashkari, the President of the Minneapolis Fed. He explains his thinking and why he's become one of the most hawkish officials at the central bank. We also discuss the future of the Fed's decision making framework, the impact of student loan relief, the market and much more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The unemployment rate is down to 3.5%, which is far lower than just about anyone thought it would be a year ago. So that's great. On the other hand, measures of labor force participation are below where they were pre-crisis. So the question is whether there's been some fundamental shift in the composition of the labor market vs. the pre-pandemic era, or whether we're still in the process of normalization. To dive into this more, we spoke to Joelle Gamble, Chief Economist at the US Department of Labor. Among other things, we discuss the narrowing gap between black and white unemployment and whether this progress can be sustained throughout the cycle.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve is in tightening mode. And there's that old adage "don't fight the Fed" which means in theory it's a bad time for stocks. And yet we saw a surprisingly powerful rally off the bottom in June. But now what? Can the market resume its ascent? Or will we return to the lows, or possibly make new lows? On this episode we speak to Helene Meisler, who has been trading stocks for roughly four decades, and who has a unique approach to analyzing the market. She draws stock charts by hand. In our chat, Meisler explains her methodology, and gives her assessment of the market right now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In theory, what gets people most excited about crypto is lines going straight up. But one of the biggest successes in crypto is the rise of stablecoins. Basically, stablecoins allow people to hold dollar-linked assets directly on the blockchain. This is potentially important for P2P payments, trading, cross-exchange arbitrage and more. But by holding actual money, the big stablecoin issuers potentially have a massive amount of power in a space that's supposed to be all about decentralization. On this episode, we speak with Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin. We talked about regulation, the business model of stablecoins, and the influence he has within the broader ecosystem.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gas prices are central to everything these days. Biden's approval rating seems to move inverse with the price of gasoline. The entire market started rallying after gasoline prices started moving lower in June. But then, what exactly determines the price of gasoline? Of course oil is a big part of it, but it's just one significant driver. There is also refining capacity. And taxes. And the gas station's margin. And the cost of distribution within the United States. So how does it all shake out? On this episode we speak with Patrick DeHaan, head of Petroleum Analysis at GasBuddy, who breaks it all down, and helps us understand the market for gasoline.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks to surging energy costs and extreme weather events, there's a greater urgency to decarbonize the electricity grid. However, it's not enough just to add more solar panels, or wind turbines or even nuclear plants. We need a way to move all that power. And today's grid wasn't made for intermittent energy sources. On this episode we speak to Rob Gramlich, the Founder and President of Grid Strategies, about what we need in our grid to take advantage of intermittent power and what it would take to get there, both from a monetary and regulatory standpoint.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As everyone knows, electricity prices in Europe have soared, due to a combination of factors, most prominently Russia's war in Ukraine and the curtailing of natural gas supplies. But how bad is it going to get this winter? Will Germany have enough energy to power homes and factories? Or will industrial operations have to shut down. On this episode, we speak with two guests: Bloomberg Opinion Columnist Javier Blas as well as Singapore-based hedge fund manager Alex Turnbull. They walk through how to think through both the European and global energy situation as the weather gets cold.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Markets have staged an impressive bounce since the middle of June. Stocks are way up. Credit spreads have come in. Mortgage rates have tightened again. And long rates have mellowed out. So is the coast all clear? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Pimco Group Chief Investment Officer Dan Ivascyn about why this is an environment characterized by a high level of uncertainty. It's not that he's pessimistic or bearish, per se, but rather that there are risks all over the place as the Federal Reserve attempts to tame inflation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The multi-trillion dollar question for the US economy is “Can inflation drop to the Federal Reserve’s target without a substantial jump in the unemployment rate?” Everything is riding on this, as it informs the trajectory for the Fed and for growth in the near future. On this episode of the podcast, we pose that question to Jan Hatzius, Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs. We discuss what it will take to bring the unemployment rate down, why it's going to be difficult to avoid a hard landing and also why so many economists both inside and outside of the Federal Reserve got the inflation trajectory wrong over the last year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Labor markets are considered to be "tight" right now, but wage growth continues to lag inflation. For decades, in fact, we've seen a steady decline in worker bargaining power, or labor's share of total income. So what would it take to turn this around? How can workers regain leverage? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Anna Stansbury, an MIT economist who focuses on labor and macroeconomics. She discusses her research, the decline of labor's share and the role that unionization and other factors play in this long-term trend.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people think about the market mania we recently experienced, the most glaring thing that comes to mind is the meme stocks. In early 2021, the huge moves in names like AMC and GameStop exemplified this new Robinhood, r/WSB, crypto world. But there were activities much more egregious than some retail traders buying odd lots on Robinhood. Serious, professional investors and traders lost huge sums of money giving out unsecured loans to crypto hedge funds like 3AC, which then proceeded to incinerate their money. In other words, lots of people, with a range of sophistication, threw out some basics of risk management wholesale. On this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Benn Eifrt, founder and CIO at the boutique volatility hedge fund QVR Advisors, about how manias happen, and the big lessons everyone should learn from the market over the last two years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With energy prices booming, heatwaves ravaging Europe, and Russia going to war against Ukraine, there's an increased focus on the so-called energy transition. Interest in decarbonization is surging. But there's still a lot of ambiguity about what that might look like. As we've learned lately, with booming demand for coal, and many premature obituaries having been written for oil, energy sources don't just disappear easily like how Palm Pilots died after the introduction of the iPhone. In fact, the consumer tech/disruption framework is completely the wrong way to think about it. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Bob Brackett -- a senior research analyst at Bernstein -- on what so many people get wrong about the energy transition. And what it will look like instead. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In theory, a big shift towards renewable sources of energy (like wind and solar and electric vehicles) mean less money and power for Russia, and the OPEC nations. But new forms of energy also require resource extraction. And we've already seen growing tension in places that have abundant copper and lithium deposits. So what are the new politics of extraction? On this episode of the podcast we speak with microbiologist Cristina Dorador who, among other things, has been a contributor to a proposed new Chilean constitution that will be put to a referendum later this year. The constitution seeks to enshrine certain restrictions and rights that may make mining more difficult or costlier than it has been in the past. And whether the constitutional reforms pass or not, it's representative of a growing backlash in many places to the way mining rights were handled in the past. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Federal Reserve recently began shrinking its massive balance sheet, unwinding trillions of dollars worth of bond purchases that it started making during the depths effort to offset the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It's not the first time that the Fed has undertaken 'quantitative tightening,' as the process is called. But this time around is different. The central bank is withdrawing stimulus at an unprecedented speed. The big question for markets now is what the impact of this liquidity withdrawal will actually be, and whether differences in the size and composition of the Fed's more recent market operations make this bout of 'QT' different to previous episodes. Joseph Wang is a former trader on the Federal Reserve's open markets desk and now blogs about the central bank as "Fed Guy." In this episode, he walks us through the mechanics of the central bank's big balance sheet unwind, explains how it might affect markets, and outlines all the uncertainties that still surround this huge operation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years, venture capital firms have been pouring money into start-ups, trying to get a piece of the next Amazon or Apple. Valuations for new tech companies soared, and many of them took to crypto to explore new forms of raising money. That included issuing tokens to venture capital funds who sometimes then flipped them to retail investors. Now, Silicon Valley seems to be crashing back down to Earth. And an industry that's all about sourcing more and more money at higher valuations, is having to contend with down rounds. Meanwhile, many of the tokens sold by start-ups have lost value during the crypto crash. On this episode we speak with long-time angel investor and co-host of the 'All-In' podcast Jason Calacanis, who was early into companies like Uber, Calm and Robinhood. He predicts that Silicon Valley is about to learn a very expensive lesson.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every time a crisis hits, you get a new round of people warning about the end of US dollar dominance. The Covid crisis and its aftermath is no exception. It may be that the world will change over the long run in some way that does help to dislodge the greenback. But in the meantime, concerns about a looming recession mean that the dollar is booming against other currencies. It's at a 20-year high against the euro, and it's soared against the yen as well. So why has the dollar been rising? And what is the impact of that on the world economy? On this episode, we speak with Jon Turek, the founder of JST Advisors, and the author of the Cheap Convexity Blog, about why the dollar's been so strong, and the risk of a potential "doom loop" that will drag down the global economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Twitter sued Elon Musk, attempting to force him to make good on his 44 billion buyout offer for the company. This story has already been surreal in many ways, and now we might get an actual trial out of it in a Delaware court. So what should we expect, in terms of the process and the law? On this episode we speak with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine, who has been chronicling the whole saga in his newsletter Money Stuff. He walks us through the general legal arguments, and what to expect in a theoretical trial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you've ever interacted with hardcore Bitcoin maximalists you might find some of them, at least, to be... abrasive. And it's not just no-coiners who are the target of their scorn. The real enemies are ex-maxis, who are viewed as apostates. Nic Carter, a co-founder and GP at the VC firm Castle Island Ventures, has been a longtime Bitcoiner. He has been in the sapce for a long time. He is a prolific writer. He has extolled the monetary case for Bitcoin. And he's defended the environmental aspects of mining. But he also recently revealed an investment in a non-Bitcoin crypto company that's made him a persona non-grata in the laser eyes world. On this episode, he talks about the world of Bitcoin maximalists, why he is investing elsewhere, what they get wrong, the toxicity of their culture, and also why in spite of it all, he still considers himself a Bitcoiner.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The market for US Treasuries is arguably one of the most important and liquid markets in the world. But it's been experiencing a number of hiccups in recent years, such as the sudden selloff of March 2020. And in more recent weeks, yields on US government debt have also spiked as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. Some of that makes sense as the central bank makes big changes to its forecast for inflation and markets adjust to the new path. But the degree of the moves has also led some traders to conclude that there's a problem in the way this huge market is functioning. So why does a market that should be pretty boring keep experiencing all this drama? On this episode, we bring back Josh Younger, Managing Director and Global Head of ALM Research and Strategy at JPMorgan, to talk about why bonds keep going through all these shocks and what can be done to minimize them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first real explosive Internet IPO was a company called TheGlobe.com. It was kind of a proto-social networking/message board site, and on the day it went public in 1998, its shares soared 606%. Its co-founders were briefly worth around $100 million each. They become overnight celebrities, known for their extravagant lifestyles and even their fashion choices. Of course, it all came to an end when the tech bubble collapsed. So what is the experience of a bubble collapsing and watching all of your wealth vanish actually like? On this episode, we spoke with TheGlobe.com Co-Founder and Co-CEO Stephan Paternot, about the IPO, and the moment he knew it was all coming to an end. We also discussed how he went from ultra-rich to needing help from his parents to pay the rent, and what it was like bouncing back from that psychologically.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inflation was running hot even before Russia invaded Ukraine, but disruption in Europe's bread basket certainly hasn't helped matters and there are now plenty of warnings that a global food shortage could be looming. Even if the normal cycle of sowing crops and harvesting them can keep going uninterrupted in Ukraine, wheat exports would still need to get out of the country. With Russia currently blockading the Black Sea, this seems like a major challenge. In this episode of Odd Lots, former Nato Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis presents one idea to get Ukrainian grains out and to the rest of the world. He suggests reaching back to a military playbook last used in the Tanker War between Iraq and Iran.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

'Markets can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent' is a classic maxim for investors, but it holds true for journalists too. In this episode, we speak with the Financial Times's Dan McCrum and Paul Murphy (Tracy's old boss) about their multi-year effort to expose fraud at Wirecard, a German payments giant that went spectacularly belly-up after billions of dollars were found to have gone missing. Dan, who's just written a book about his experience called "Money Men," explains how he first spotted problems at what was once described as "Europe's greatest fintech," and how hard it was to convince others of the truth. Rather than going after Wirecard itself, German authorities went after the journalists and short-sellers who were warning of the scheme.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The situation in energy right now seems bleak. But while everyone is focused on the high price of gasoline, or the frailty of the electrical grid, advances are still being made to decarbonize, and make our energy system more robust. It's jut not getting as much attention right now. But what can the public sector do to accelerate this process? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Jigar Shah, the Director of the Loan Programs Office at the DOE, about the frailties of the existing energy system, and how they're working to accelerate the fix. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are a lot of challenges facing emerging markets right now. For a start, the dollar has been pretty strong, heaping pressure on governments that have borrowed in a foreign currency. Meanwhile, energy and food prices are soaring. These are two things that emerging markets often have to import, or subsidize for their citizens. Put it altogether and you have a toxic mix facing developing nations, and we've already seen acute problems emerge in Sri Lanka and Lebanon. On this episode, we speak with Jay Newman, a long-time EM debt specialist and a former portfolio manager for Elliott Management. Jay has a wealth of experience in emerging markets -- including successfully going head-to-head with Argentina after the country defaulted on its debt. In this episode, he describes how the world is in for one of the worst EM debt crises in decades, and gives us his thoughts on how foreign investors should approach these markets. He’s just published his first novel, a financial, political thriller: Undermoney. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a fairly linear relationship between what's going on in the stock market and what's going on in the world of venture capital and private tech investing. When tech stocks plunge and the IPO window closes, then that hits valuations -- everything from late stage companies to those earlier in their trajectory. But there's more than just a declining stock market that's bedeviling the VC world right now. Numerous excesses from the boom of the last decade, including an influx of new money into the VC space, now have to be worked out. On this episode, we speak with Tyler Tringas, founder of the Calm Fund, about the excesses that now need to be paid back.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The price of oil is the central threat to the economy right now. Surging gasoline costs crimp consumer budgets. Surging diesel costs make everything more expensive. And of course, we know there are all kinds of structural impediments to increasing supply. But the stakes are huge, particularly since the Federal Reserve has signaled its willingness to throw the economy into a recession, if that's what it takes to get inflation down. So is there anything that can be done? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Skanda Amarnath, the Executive Director at Employ America, as well as Rory Johnston, the founder of Commodity Context and an investor at Price Street, to talk about concrete steps that can be taken to increase oil supplies and bring about price stability.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oil prices are sky high. And there's plenty of oil in the ground in North America. And so far the supply response has been disappointing. Frustration is boiling over among drivers and politicians, and it's made life more complicated for the complicated. So what's the hold up? On this episode, we speak to longtime energy investor and industry participant Peter Tertzakian about the reality on the ground. He explains that there are numerous operational factors constraining oil supply, including degraded quality of equipment and a shortage of labor, not to mention a reluctance among investors to splurge on new production. We discuss the specific constraints, as well as what it will take to get supply going on.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Legendary short seller Jim Chanos says that despite the plunge in stocks, there are numerous swathes of the equity market with plenty of downside risk. On this episode, the Chanos & Co. fund manager, argues that the market overall has simply not internalized what sustained higher rates will mean to business models and valuations across a variety of sectors, including real estate, utilities and consumer packaged goods. He walks through the various excesses that we've seen over the last several years, and why investors are all paying the price for them now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Housing in the US is a constant source of frustration. On the way up, prospective homebuyers worry that they're missing out on their chance to jump on the housing ladder. On the way down, homeowners worry about losing their equity and their nest egg. So is there a better way? Is there a way to make housing more equitable, and to separate the investment component from the shelter component? On this episode we speak with Daryl Fairweather, the chief economist at Redfin, about a land value tax and how it could help us reposition housing so that it's less of a financial asset that spirals people higher, and blocks so many people out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most people think of Foxconn as the company that assembles iPhones. But it's a lot more than that. In fact the company really got started by manufacturing all of the tiny components and connectors for the PC industry around the world, long before the iPhone ever existed. Now it wants to go back to its roots, but instead of making parts for PCs, it wants to make all the key components for electric vehicles. The potential is massive, and if they get it right, it could be wildly profitable. On this episode of the podcast, we speak to Bloomberg Opinion's Tim Culpan (@tculpan on Twitter) who has followed the company for a long time. He explains how EVs fit into Foxconn's strategy, and how it plans to win in the space. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are numerous macro factors driving elevated inflation. But in some categories, there also seems to be a lot of bad luck. When it comes to the US wheat market, the weather has been awful. After a long drought, farmers have been faced with an extraordinary amount of rain. As such, the spring planting season has been one of the worst on record. Of course, this comes amid overall bad conditions, with prices already elevated, owing in part to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So to understand more about what's going on for farmers, we spoke with Angie Setzer, a co-founder of ConsusROI, which helps farmers make planting and hedging decisions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The collapse of the Terra/Luna experiment has brought fresh attention to stablecoins, and the different flavors they come in. Some are fully backed with standard financial assets. Others are backed by crypto. Others aren't really backed at all. But why the interest in stablecoins to begin with? Why so much enthusiasm and investment for cryptocurrencies that aren't even designed to go up? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Alan Lane. Alan is the CEO of Silvergate Bank, which is one of the most important financial institutions in crypto, providing banking services to many of the big players. It's also active in the stablecoin space, providing infrastructure for creating and redeeming them. Among other things, it purchased the assets of Diem, which was Facebook's aborted stablecoin project. We talk with Alan about why there's so much money in the space, and how the industry might be properly regulated.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

These days, oil gets all the attention. Consumers feel and see the pinch directly every time they fill up their gas tank. But the big story in the next decade could be copper. It's not easy to ramp up copper production, due to the upfront cost and lead time in getting new mines online, and demand is expected to soar in part due to green initiatives. On this episode we speak with Goldman Sachs metals strategist Nick Snowdon about why the copper market is expected to be incredibly tight.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world of trucking is extraordinarily complex. There are an untold number of players that need to ship goods around the country. And there are tens of thousands of carriers, large and small, who own the trucks that move the goods. Standing in the middle are freight brokerages, whose job is to find the right company to move the right goods. But what does it take to win in this space? What is the role of technology in making it all more efficient? And what is the market doing right now? On this episode, which was recorded at the Freightwaves Future Of Supply Chain Conference in Northwest Arkansas, we speak with Matt Pyatt, the CEO of Arrive Logistics, one of the fastest growing freight brokerages in the country. He walks through what his company does and how it's grown so fast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inflation is too high, and the Federal Reserve has started on an aggressive hiking path in order to tame it. But will these hikes really accomplish anything? After all, the Fed can't print more oil or housing. So what is the central bank's real goal here? On this episode we speak with Edward Harrison, a senior reporter on the Bloomberg markets team, and the author of the 'The Everything Risk' newsletter. He explains how the Fed sees the challenge at hand, what rate hikes are supposed to do, and the odds of it all actually working out as planned.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bridgewater's Greg Jensen on Why Markets Have Further to FallInflation is at its highest in four decades and the Federal Reserve is raising rates at the fastest pace since 2000. Inflation and a slowing economy are a toxic mix for markets, and in recent days we've seen both stocks and bonds hit hard. So how do you actually invest in this type of macro environment, or model big themes like supply chain disruption and deglobalization? On this episode, we speak with Greg Jensen, the co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, about how he's thinking about the risks of inflation and slower growth, what it all means for markets, and how Bridgewater is preparing for it. As he puts it, market prices are still too optimistic relative to the secular change that's taking place within them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We continue to see an explosion of interest and money flowing into the crypto/blockchain space. But recent price declines and the Terra disaster have raised new questions about what the whole point is. So ... what is the whole point? What is crypto good for? To get a better understanding of the state of the technology and the market, we speak with Arthur Breitman, the co-founder of the Tezos blockchain. The episode was recorded at the Milken Global Institute Conference in Beverly Hills.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years, economists of the MMT school have been arguing that the way we think about deficits and government spending is all wrong. Whereas many people warn about the unsustainability of the national debt -- likening it to a household credit card bill -- the MMT view is that real resources are the constraint on government spending, and that inflation is the sign that real resources are being stretched. So what about now? We had substantial fiscal support during the pandemic, and now we have the highest inflation in over four decades. On this episode we speak with Stephanie Kelton, a leading proponent of MMT, a professor at Stony Brook, and the cohost of the Best New Ideas In Money podcast. We discuss the causes of the current inflation, and how to think about it through the MMT lens. This episode was recorded in Beverly Hills at the Milken Institute Global Conference.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The collapse of the Terra ecosystem, and the tokens Luna and UST, will go down as one of the most painful and devastating chapters in crypto history. Over $60 billion market value has evaporated, and numerous retail investors are nursing major losses. What's particularly bad is that this was a big project, championed by some of the most notable names in crypto. But some people obviously saw it coming, and understood it to be a disaster in the making. On this episode we speak with Kevin Zhou, the founder of the crypto hedge fund Galois Capital. He began warning about Terra publicly earlier this year, and was short Luna starting in early May. He explains the exact mechanics of the coin's implosion. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first true meme stock was GameStop, which went wild in early 2021, delivering brutal losses to short sellers, and a fortune to a handful of independent retail investors who participated in the squeeze. The episode shined a bright light on the WallStreetBets subreddit and the power of social media in disseminating trade ideas. One investor who did well was Rod Alzmann, who had been long GameStop for years as a value/turnaround play. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Rod, the founder of Wook Capital and the proprietor GMEdd.com. We discuss where the company is now and what happened to the cohort of traders who scored big during that episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's really been an extraordinary year for markets and the economy. Stocks are down, particularly, growth stocks which have gotten clobbered. Treasuries are down. Inflation is hotter than it's been in years. For the first time in ages, the Fed is hiking aggressively, having just moved by 50 basis points, with premises to do more. Plus there's a host of other shocks we're experiencing from the ongoing effects of the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, and the hard lockdowns in China. So how to make sense of it all? On this episode we speak with Neil Dutta, Head of Economics at Renaissance Macro Research and Luke Kawa, Allocation Strategist at UBS Asset Management, to make sense of what's going on, and what to watch next. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The aviation industry has never seen a disruption like what it's experienced over the last two years with the pandemic. Air travel ground to a virtual halt initially, but has slowly been climbing out of a hole, with leisure travel in particular starting to boom. So what's next for travelers and carriers? On this episode, we speak with Scott Keyes of ScottsCheapFlights.com about the future of travel and the business model of flying. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the big themes these days is the return of the 'real' economy. You can't solve problems these days with just money. Not everything can be done by sitting behind a screen. And so some of the most important players in this new environment are the commodity trading shops, which help arrange financing and delivery of oil, coal, natural gas, nickel and everything else you can think of across the far-flung corners of the globe. It's a very different type of business than most trading, which is mostly just about charts on a screen. On this episode we speak with long-time commodities journalist turned Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas -- the co-author of 'The World For Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources' -- to get a deeper understanding of how these firms operate, and how they're dealing with this environment of surging commodity prices and extreme volatility. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shanghai, a city of nearly 30 million people, is currently under a hard lockdown, as the Chinese government sticks to its Covid Zero strategy of limiting the virus at all costs. There have been some shocking images and stories over the past few weeks of frustrated apartment dwellers unable to go outside or get basic necessities. Some of those things have improved somewhat, and now some residents are able to coordinate and make their own delivery food orders. On this episode, we speak with David Fishman, an energy analyst at the Lantau Group, who, himself, is in a locked down Shanghai apartment complex. He discusses how he's been able to coordinate with other residents to group-buy food and obtain basic essentials.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spring of 2021 was peak meme mania. GameStop was going nuts. AMC was going nuts. And in general, the big cohort of traders that entered the market in early 2020 was riding high. Since then, though, things have turned south. Volumes have dipped significantly. The memes came back to Earth, and a lot of the growth stocks that were riding high have gotten absolutely killed. So where do things stand now, and what happened to all the new traders? On this episode, we speak to Lily Francus, director of quantitative research at Moody's Analytics, as well as Kyla Scanlon, a popular financial commentator across social media (as well as the founder of a new financial education company) to understand what happened, what's changed, and how the last two years have permanently altered financial markets as we know them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The price of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have been moving sideways for awhile. But it doesn't seem like there's any slowdown in terms of money entering the space. Every day, some new fund is being launched or some legacy financial institution is diving into it. But what's all this money going to do? On this episode we speak with Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO and co-founder of FTX, as well as Bloomberg Opinion columnist, Matt Levine, the money making opportunities that people are exploiting, whether it's directional bets on coins or yield farming or arbitrage, and how much potential profit there is for the taking. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The long grounding of the cargo ship The Ever Forward has shone a spotlight on the limited dredging equipment that exists in the U.S. The most powerful equipment here has significantly less capacity than what exists in Europe, or in the Suez Canal. What's more, the U.S. can't use foreign equipment due to a law known as the Foreign Dredging Act of 1906, which requires that any dredging done in the country, be done with U.S. labor on U.S.-owned ships. And while this has come to the fore due to the Ever Forward, the significance could be far wider. On this episode of the podcast we speak with Howard Gutman and Andrew Durant, both of whom are working to overturn the law. They argue that the restrictions on dredging equipment have significant negative ramifications for the environment, port capacity, and therefore the economy overall. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With oil prices surging, there's a sense of greater urgency about moving more towards electric vehicles. But of course the metals that go into EVs are also expensive. And that goes for the core technology -- lithium ion batteries. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with James Frith, a lithium battery expert and investor at the VC firm Volta Energy Technologies. We discuss the state of the art of battery technology, as well as the ongoing need for commodities.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Goldman's top commodity strategist Jeff Currie was one of the earliest to call that we're in a new commodities supercycle, starting early last year. Well, it's not even close to over. Currie estimates that we're just in the second inning of it. The issue is what Currie characterizes as a "volatility trap" that's keeping investment on the sidelines, despite surging prices of spot commodity prices. In this episode, he explains how far commodity prices can go, what the challenges are to inducing further investment, and what policies could help bring things into balance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For much of the last two decades, housing has been the consummate macro asset. It was at the heart of a huge boom. Then there was the crash and the Great Financial Crisis. Then there was slow comeback and return to normal. And then amidst the pandemic, housing became insanely hot for a variety of reasons. But now housing is also a micro story, as the housing supply chain -- not a topic many people have put much thought into previously -- is a key reason why home construction is slow. So where does this all stand, now that mortgage just broke 5%? Do understand the state of the market, we speak with Conor Sen, a Bloomberg Opinion contributor and the founder of Peachtree Creek Investments as well as Dustin Jalbert a senior economist at Fastmarkets, with a specialty on the lumber market. We examine housing from both the macro perspective as well as the supply chain. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the last several years, most economic crises have been solvable by money. Swap lines. Bailouts. Central bank asset purchases, and so on. But now the world is experiencing something new: A problem that money can't easily solve. When it comes to, for example, avoiding Russian energy, there's no simple solution. Money can't buy an instant energy changeover. This is all part of a new regime that Zoltan Pozsar, Managing Director and head of Global STIR Strategy at Credit Suisse, likens to Bretton Woods III. On this episode, he returns to spell out his framework, and what it means for financial markets, the dollar, and the new world economy overall.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most people don't think much about wooden pallets -- and that might be true even of people conducting large-scale military invasions. Recent reports claim that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been hampered by a lack of pallets, making it more difficult to move the vast amounts of supplies needed to support soldiers and tanks. Meanwhile, the disruption of Ukraine's lumber industry could make a global shortage of wooden pallets even worse. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we catch up with Marshall White, Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech, to talk about the role of the humble wooden pallet in warfare.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a long time, bond investing was considered a sleepy backwater. You bought a bond and just clipped coupons as you waited for it mature. Boring! Then Bill Gross discovered that bonds could be traded. He founded Pimco and proceeded to make lots of money from bond investing in sometimes questionable ways. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine co-hosts in this special Odd Lots episode with Mary Childs, who's just published a book on Gross called "The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire and Lost It All." We discuss some of Pimco's most famous trades, whether Gross was a good investor, and his legacy to the world of bonds.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this year, there was a growing movement among some musicians (lead by Neil Young) to remove music from Spotify as a protest against Joe Rogan. But frustration at the streaming music giant goes back a lot further than that. And it has to do with how royalties are paid, and the lack of transparency about how music gets discovered on the service. On this episode of Odd Lots, Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal speak with Damon Krukowsky, the former drummer of the indie rock band Galaxie 500, and one half of the duo Damon and Naomi. He gives us his perception of industry economics, and explains his frustration as an independent musician with how the service works.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For years 15 years, Hugh Hendry ran the hedge fund Eclectica Asset Management, earning a reputation as a provocative and contrarian thinker on the entire state of the world economy. These days though, he's living in St. Bart's, surfing, and managing luxury properties for the richest people in the world. But of course, he can't stop thinking about macro. On this episode off Odd Lots, Hendry joins Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal to talk about Europe's big energy mistake, China's property troubles, and why even after all this time, the world can't get enough dollar assets.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In times of uncertainty, people often reach for historical analogies. In recent weeks and months, as inflation has continued to climb and commodity prices spike, there's been a lot of talk of a return to the 1970s. But is that the right parallel? On this episode of Odd Lots, Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal speak to Macquarie Capital Strategist Viktor Shvets about why we should instead be looking at a different historical era. He argues that central banks are at risk of raising rates too quickly and flipping the world into recession.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to commodities, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has had a notable impact on the price of oil and natural gas. It's also a huge deal for wheat, and food more broadly. Ukraine is a massive player in the global wheat market, and the planting season is basically right now. What's more, Russia is also a big wheat seller, and Belarus is a big supplier of fertilizer. On this episode of Odd Lots, Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal speak with Scott Irwin, an agriculture economist at the University of Illinois, about what he calls the biggest disruption he's seen in his career.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's happened again. Another container ship owned by the Evergreen Maritime Corp. has gotten stuck a year after the Ever Given became lodged in the Suez Canal and briefly halted the flow of global trade. This time the grounding happened in the Chesapeake Bay and involves the Ever Forward -- a 1000-foot container ship which happens to be carrying the contents of Tracy's entire Hong Kong apartment. On this episode of Odd Lots, Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal speak with maritime historian Sal Mercogliano about why another ship has gotten stuck, what it says about shipping and infrastructure, and how long Tracy might have to wait to get her stuff.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a big question over whether Russia will be able (or willing) to make payments on billions of dollars it’s borrowed from investors given its current situation. Not only does the country have a history of previous major defaults, but some of its outstanding bonds are also structured kind of strangely. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal speak with University of Virginia law professor Mitu Gulati and University of North Carolina's Mark Weidemaier. They describe how odd some Russian bonds are and what might happen after default.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has kicked off a giant mess in the world of commodities and sent prices surging. Commodities trader Pierre Andurand has made his name from navigating volatile energy markets, correctly positioning for negative prices oil in April 2020. Now, he sees tightness in the energy market staying for some time. On this episode of Odd Lots, he tells Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway how we might end up getting $200 per barrel crude oil by the end of the year, and what that would mean for the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The soaring price of electricity, particularly in Europe, is once again causing a search for alternative sources of power. Obviously there's a lot of interest in wind and solar -- the classic renewables. But due to their intermittency, it's difficult to use them to sustain the power grid without some kind of backup. Enter nuclear power? On this episode of Odd Lots, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway speak with Meredith Angwin, the author of Shorting The Grid: The Hidden Fragility Of Our Electric Grid, and a long time energy researcher. She makes the argument that nuclear is safe, clean, sustainable, and the answer to concerns about grid reliability.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has set off a new wave of concern about cyber attacks. Indeed, there were already reports of some in the run up to the war—like when hackers reportedly targeted U.S. gas producers. But while worries about cyber attacks have been around for a long time, it remains hard to get a handle on the actual threat. Such attacks aren’t all that visible and information on them is often difficult to get, or comes long after the fact. On this episode of Odd Lots, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway speak with Matt Suiche, a famous hacker and co-founder of Comae Technologies, about what a cyber war between Russia and the West may actually look like.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Harsh sanctions have been imposed against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. However, the country's energy exports have largely been spared. One significant reason for this is Germany's high dependence on Russian energy, particularly natural gas. So how did Germany wind up in this situation? And why didn't it take steps years ago to start weaning itself off of this dependency? We discuss this with Matt Klein, the founder and publisher of The Overshoot as well as the author of the book Trade Wars Are Class Wars. He explains how misplaced German priorities led to years of underinvestment, and a poorly thought out energy strategy, which is now forcing Germany to pivot at a very difficult time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

U.S. and E.U. countries have unveiled extraordinarily tough sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. But what effect will they have? Are they tough enough? And will Russia feel a significant amount of pain as long as the sanctions don't include energy? On this episode, we speak with sanctions researcher Edoardo Saravalle about the existing sanctions, their power, what more can be done, and what history says about how they will work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Even prior to Russia's attack on Ukraine, the global economy was facing an extraordinary moment. Now things have become massively more complex. In addition to the attack itself, rich Western governments have unveiled historically powerful sanctions against Russia, most notably by freezing much of the country's FX reserves. So what are the immediate and long term ramifications? On this episode, we speak with Credit Suisse short-term interest rate strategist Zoltan Pozsar on what this all means, how the Fed will react, why gold is important again, and how could this mark a turning point for the global dominance of the US dollar. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some truckers make good money and have a high degree of control of their schedule. Others work for low pay under exceptionally difficult conditions. Port truckers, in particular, have dealt with poor pay, high debts, wage theft, and other difficult conditions. But an effort is being made to organize for a better situation. On this episode, we speak with Ron Herrera, Director of the Teamsters Port Division, on the union's efforts, as well as how it fits into broader supply chain stress.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GDP is booming. The labor market is booming. However inflation is elevated, and consumer sentiment is deeply depressed. So where does the White House go next with its economic strategy? On this episode, we speak with Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council under President Joe Biden. Deese walks us through what the White House has done over the last year on supply chains, what's working, and where the administration is going next with its economic agenda.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The price of oil has surged over the last year, and U.S. oil companies are making money hand over first. In theory, the high prices should stabilize as more drilling is done. But so far, the supply response has only been modest. After years in which U.S. oil companies (shale players, in particular) lit money on fire by expanding production at all costs, the industry is reluctant to invest in new production. So what will it take? On this episode, we speak with Rory Johnston, Managing Director and Market Economist at Price Street and the author of the Commodity Context newsletter, to get a better understanding of the factors moving oil prices, and what it will take to bring them down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a terrible few months for growth stocks. Small, unprofitable tech companies have crashed. SPACs have gotten crushed. Recent IPOs got crushed. And even the FANGs are way off their old highs. Of course, we don't have very much visibility into what's happening in private markets, so we only have anecdotes and inferences. But what's the big story? And is this the start of a big change? On this episode, we speak to Howard Lindzon, a GP at Social Leverage and the co-founder of Stocktwits, to get a sense of what's really going on. Howard launched a SPAC last year, does public market stock investing, as well as private VC investing, so he really knows the whole space very well. He discusses multiple reasons why tech turned rapidly, and why it might be awhile before it all bounces back.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As inflation data continues to come in hotter than expected, pressure on the Fed is ramping up big time. Traders are betting on more and more hikes, with a distinct possibility of a 50 basis point hike in March. So the question is, can the Fed hike in such a way that it tamps down inflation while not causing a recession? On this episode we speak with economist Tim Duy of SGH Macro Advisors and the University of Oregon, on the huge challenge facing the Fed this year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The book “Liar's Poker” came out in 1989. Its depiction of Wall Street culture — obnoxious, crude, drunk on risk — may seem very different to today's big bank trading floors. Nonetheless, the book is still a popular read. In some places, interns are even assigned to read it. So why the enduring appeal? And what are the lessons from the book, over 30 years since its release? On this episode, we speak with its author Michael Lewis, who recently recorded an audio version of the book, while also doing a short companion podcast. He reflects on his latest rereading of it, and what it means today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're in a period of elevated inflation right now. But at least there's some good news: The price of nails is lower than it was in 1695. But how do we know what the price of nails was back then? And what can such a long-term look tell us about innovation in such a seemingly simple product? To learn more, we spoke with Dan Sichel, an economist at Wellesley College, who has recently published a paper on exactly this topic. We discussed how he did it and his overall approach to the project.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Obviously, there's been a tremendous amount of volatility in crypto lately. But what has been the effect on people who are deeply involved in the space? On this episode, we speak with Eva Beylin, who knows crypto as both an investor and a builder. As an investor, she's part of the amorphous investment collective known as eGirl Capital, which features numerous crypto anons who only know each other by their avatars. On the building side, she's the director of The Graph Foundation, which is aiming to be the Google of the blockchain. She talks to us about both projects and what things look like in this current moment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the last several months, Europe has seen its power costs soar. There are many drivers of it, but one factor has been a shift in Chinese energy consumption. While China has plenty of domestic coal resources, from time to time it imports quite a bit, depending on transportation costs. This can have major ramifications for prices outside of its borders. Meanwhile, China is undergoing a meaningful change to move off of coal and rely more on renewables and nuclear power. To help us understand what it means, we speak with Alex Turnbull, the author of a new paper on Chinese goal use, to break down what happened, and where it's going.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Late last year, the big Chinese property developer Evergrande started running into severe financial distress, as its bonds tumbled and frustrated customers faced delays in getting their homes. Since then, it's gotten worse. Evergrande is still troubled, as are other property developers who have also run into stress. So what does it mean, and what are China's goals here? On this episode, we speak with Travis Lundy, an independent analyst on the Smartkarma platform, who has studied these companies in depth. He explains why things have gotten worse, and what China's goals are with a property sector that historically has been so crucial to its economic model.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.