Odd Lots (Bloomberg)

With major economies around the world coming to a screeching halt, emerging markets are in a squeeze of historic proportions. Not only are they being buffeted by a domestic health crisis, but export industries are getting clobbered at the same time as access to dollars is drying up. On this episode, we speak with Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations on the historic nature of this episode, which countries are particularly vulnerable, and what policies might allow for a way out.

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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.

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In a world dominated by passive investing on one end and retail YOLO traders on the other, there aren't many star fund managers these days. There's one big exception though. Cathie Wood, the head of the ARK family of funds, has become a celebrity due to the incredible performance of her stock picks. So how do they do it? On this episode, we speak with Brett Winton, ARK's Head of Research, who explains the process they use to find disruptive technologies, and the companies that will win from them.

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By now you've no doubt heard about DeFi: the hot vision of crypto that aims to disrupt traditional lending and fundraising. But the space remains really difficult to grasp. There's all kinds of jargon — Automated Market Makers, Impermanent Loss, etc. — and the markets don't quite operate like traditional markets do. So how does it all really work? Where's it going? And what will it all be used for beyond speculation? On this episode, we speak with Tom Schmidt of Dragonfly Capital to break it all down.

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Can the U.S. economy have a recession without it turning into a crisis? In the old days, such garden-variety recessions were fairly common. These days, less so. But why is this? And can we go back to the old-style soft recessions? The issue, arguably, is that private sector balance sheets (both debts and assets) have grown so large relative to incomes, that the value of financial assets swamp effects from changing incomes.

On this week's Odd Lots, we speak with David Levy of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center about his new report called Bubble Or Nothing about how the economy works in a world of gigantic balance sheets and extreme risk taking.

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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 Study
JPMorgan’s Risk Swap Ends Up at a Familiar Place: Rival Banks
‘Blind’ Bets on Bank Risk Transfers Have Never Been So Popular

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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.

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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. 

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For a long time, the world of derivatives trading was a niche thing, largely occupied by professional investors who used them for hedging purposes. During the pandemic and the Robinhood boom, the retail masses started discovering them, and activity exploded. Since then, the use of options, swaps and other levered positions has grown among both individual traders and the big professionals on Wall Street. There are countless influencers on social media promising "guaranteed" returns from various options selling strategies. New ETFs have been launched that embed derivatives inside them. And institutions which might historically have employed simple, sleepy investments, are now making them part of their core mix. So how did this happen, and what effect is it having on the market? On this episode, we speak with Benn Eifert, partner at QVR Advisors, about the evolution of this world, why you should not get your trading advice from Instagram, and how this trend has reshaped the entire market.

Read more: World’s Largest Options Market Weathers Indian Regulatory Curbs

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The Odd Lots team is analyzing the US economy through the lens of chicken. In this second episode of our special three-part series, we look at the birds themselves and the people who farm them. Because the way we actually get chicken has changed a lot over the years, with the industry evolving from backyard birds to huge poultry companies that outsource chicken growing to independent contractors. Farmers often say they are taking on most of the risk of raising chicks, while the big poultry companies get most of the upside. And this model of farming is becoming more popular in other agricultural areas too. So what does the way chickens are produced say about the labor market, the way it’s structured, and the distribution of risk and profits? We speak with chicken growers, agricultural experts, and more. 

This episode was updated on November 19th, 2024 to reflect a clarification —it wasn’t until 2013 that Craig Watts sent a film of his barns to his production manager. In 2014 is when he partnered with a human rights activist to produce that exposé on chicken farming.

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Decrypted returns on March 6th with a brand new season. Here's a sneak peek of what's in store. We'll be releasing new episodes every Tuesday starting next week. 

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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

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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.

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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.

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If you lived in NYC a few decades ago, you probably have heard of Crazy Eddie, an electronics retailer that was famous for its outlandish ads on TV. What most people didn't know until after it went public, is that the company was built on financial fraud. In this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with its former CFO Sam Antar about the company's shenanigans, and how it all came undone. 

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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.

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For years, the Harvard Endowment has easily been the largest endowment of any university. But as of right now, it's at risk of losing its crown to the University of Texas. So what happened? It's a combination of things including organizational tumult, external controversies over the university, controversy about the endowment's model itself, and other factors. And of course, Texas has unique tailwinds -- including a huge energy windfall -- that aren't easily replicated elsewhere. On this episode we speak with Bloomberg's higher education reporter Janet Lorin about what's changed at this huge source of capital.

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The implosion of Evergrande continues. And nobody knows exactly how the losses will be distributed. What will be the impact on creditors or people who have put down payments on homes that haven't been built yet? And what will the ripple effects be on other credits? In addition to the financial fallout, there's also a macro angle. Real estate is extremely important to the Chinese economy for all kinds of reasons. And what happens in China has effects on all of its trading partners. To explain what comes next, we spoke with Peking University Finance Professor and Senior Carnegie Fellow Michael Pettis.

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Sixty percent in equities/40 percent in bonds is a popular, general approach to structuring a diversified portfolio. In theory, when times are good, your stocks go up, and when times are bad, your bonds go up. But what if the correlation between bonds and stocks changes? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Farouk Jivraj, head of Investment Strategies Research at Barclays, about cross-asset correlations and what causes them to change over time. 

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A week from today we will get the February jobs report and there are growing concerns that the US labor market is slowing. Already, the number of sectors adding jobs in this economy is on the decline. Meanwhile, the housing market continues to struggle. Add in the Department of Government Efficiency and worsening fiscal conditions in the state and local sector, and the government may prove to be a drag on employment. To talk about this and other macro developments, including possible tariffs, we brought back Jon Turek, founder and CEO of JST Advisors, to break it all down on this episode.

Read more: US Initial Jobless Claims Hit Highest of 2025

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There's a lot of talk right now about concentration risk in US equities. For instance, the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 currently account for 38% of the total index, compared to just 17.5% a decade ago. And all the big winners have been tech companies like Apple, Nvidia, Meta, etc., prompting questions about whether investors are getting overly-enthused about AI. For some, it's also bringing back memories of the dotcom bubble. So just how concentrated is the US stock market right now? What exactly is "concentration risk" anyway? What does this trend say about the power of benchmark index providers like S&P? And -- crucially -- are market participants doing anything about it? In this episode we speak with Kevin Muir, a.k.a. the Macro Tourist, about why he thinks the market is now at "peak concentration," and what could change to reduce Big Tech's dominance.

Read more: Index Providers Rule the World—For Now, at Least 
Nvidia and Five Tech Giants Now Command 30% of the S&P 500 Index

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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.

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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.

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Whenever the government is engaging in fiscal or monetary expansion, people like to invoke the history of Weimar Germany and how soon we might all go around transporting dollars in wheelbarrows. But what really happened with Weimar and how did it come about? On this episode, we speak with Zach Carter, the author of the best-selling book “The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes.” He explains how the story of collapse of the German currency was less about money printing and more about domestic political collapse and the destruction of the country's productive base.

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Commerce and payments are increasingly digital. This shift from physical to electronic is one that governments and businesses are eager to accelerate for a host of reasons. But what gets lost when we no longer have access to physical cash? On this episode, we speak with Rohan Grey, President of The Modern Money Network and the research director of the Digital Fiat Currency Institute about how governments can introduce digital currencies that enable electronic commerce, while preserving the privacy protections of physical cash.

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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.

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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.

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The fate of the economy remains extremely unclear. However there is little doubt that the Fed has taken dramatic steps to arrest the crisis. Not only has Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve dusted off old tools that were designed during the last crisis, it’s engaged in unconventional actions, such as lending directly to municipal authorities, as well as becoming a player in the market for private sector corporate debt. Amid this crisis, Nathan Tankus, a researcher at the Modern Money Network, has emerged as one of the foremost experts on what the Fed has done, and what it’s capable of doing, through his widely read newsletter. He joined us on this episode to explain and contextualize the historic nature of the Fed’s actions so far.

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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.

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When it comes to credit investing (or really any investing), there's an analytic art in deciding the right price to pay for a security. But often that's only part of the challenge. First you need someone to want to sell it to you. In something like public-market equity, this usually isn't hard. Liquidity is deep, and the "ask" price is well known. In something like private credit, it's much trickier. Someone has to sell you the deal. Someone has to call you about it and tell you about it. So how do you get the call? And how do you know when to say yes? On this episode, we speak with Milwood Hobbs, the Managing Director and Head of Sourcing & Origination at Oaktree. Prior to this role, he was at Goldman Sachs, also in leveraged finance origination and sales. So he's been involved in numerous credit deals in his career. On this episode, he talks us through his role, what's involved in it, how he gets offered deals, and how he determines what opportunities are better or worse.

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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 Agencies

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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.

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For years, nobody seemed particularly concerned about inflation. Outside of a few blips, in the wake of the financial crisis, people have become accustomed to low inflation, and central banks providing ample stimulus to the economy. But suddenly that's changing. There seem to be hints that the macro backdrop is shifting, and that has investors on edge. So why the shift and what's going on? On this week's Odd Lots, we speak with Michael Ashton of Enduring Investments, a specialist in analyzing the inflation data, and helping clients trade on it. He offers his theory of what drives inflation, and where it's going to go next.

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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.

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Passive investing is kind of boring. You dump your money in an index fund and that's it. The industry hasn't really seen big innovation since ETFs were invented in the 1990s. Enter custom indexing. Custom indexing allows asset managers to create bespoke indices for their clients. Interest in the space is already booming, with Morgan Stanley, BlackRock and JPMorgan all making acquisitions in the space. But what exactly is the difference between investing in a custom index versus something like the S&P 500? And why haven't custom indices been done before? On this episode we speak with Patrick O'Shaughnessy, CEO of OSAM and the host of the podcast "Invest Like the Best", about direct investing.

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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.

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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.

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A few decades ago, nobody really questioned vaccines. They were viewed as a standard part of staying healthy and safe. Today, the number of people questioning vaccines risks prolonging a pandemic that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. How we got to this moment didn’t start with the rollout of vaccines or in March 2020, or even with the election of Donald Trump. Our confidence in vaccines, often isn't even about vaccines. It’s about trust. And that trust has been eroding for a long time. Doubt, a new series from Bloomberg’s Prognosis podcast, looks at the forces that have been breaking down that trust. We'll trace the rise of vaccine skepticism in America to show how we got here — and where we’re going. Doubt launches on March 23. Subscribe to Prognosis today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Over the last several months, Chinese authorities have undertaken a sweeping campaign of change. We've seen crackdowns on big tech and fintech companies (like Ant Financial and Didi), online education companies, and now even the playing of video games. Investors in key sectors have gotten clobbered by the new rules. So what is the goal and what is the endgame here? On this episode, we speak to Dan Wang, a China tech analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, who breaks it all down.

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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. 

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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.

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When talking government bond defaults, plenty of people think of Argentina and Greece. But the biggest sovereign debt default of all time was arguably Russia’s repudiation of debt in 1918, after the Bolshevik revolution. In this episode, we speak to Hassan Malik, an emerging markets analyst and author of ‘Bankers and Bolsheviks,’ about how the Russian debt bubble developed and then crashed. He explains why Western investors thought Russian debt was a safe bet right up until the eve of the Soviet debt repudiation.

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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.

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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.

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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 Domination

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'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.

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It’s a big, expensive, global mystery. Why do women still make less money—a lot less—than men? In the US, the average woman makes 80 cents to every dollar a man makes. Launching May 9, the Pay Check is an in-depth investigation into what that 20 percent difference looks like. In this miniseries we'll show you how the gender pay gap plays out in real life. We'll hear from Lily Ledbetter, Mo’Nique, and a lot of other women who weren’t happy to be paid less. We'll find out what happens when a whole country tries to tackle the pay gap. And we'll talk to some women who are taking things into their own hands.

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Bloomberg’s head of economics Stephanie Flanders calls on Bloomberg's worldwide network of reporters and expert commentators to cast a fresh eye on looming challenges for the world economy which affect us all.

This 6 part podcast combines on the ground reporting with expert discussion on the future of cities, finance and technology, trade, global governance and making growth more inclusive. It's the start of a global conversation on how to confront these issues which will continue in Singapore in early November, when around 400 top business leaders and thinkers from across the globe will gather in Singapore for the first New Economy Forum.

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For years, people have talked about China's ongoing process of opening up, or liberalizing its economy. And yet lately it's taken strong moves that seem to indicate a change in direction. It's cracked down on some of its largest tech companies while also allowing its real estate sector to cool off considerably, as we've seen with the stress on Evergrande. On this Odd Lots, we speak with UMass Amherst professor Isabella Weber, the author of the new book How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. She explores China's big vision for making markets work in the pursuit of its ideas on socialism, and how the recent moves fit into a much broader, ongoing strategy.

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It's a weird moment for the markets. The big stock indices are near all time highs. And yet there have been some high profile meltdowns and blowups. There was the collapse of the vendor financing firm Greensill. And there was the wipeout of the Bill Hwang fortune. Meanwhile, numerous SPACs and other speculative stocks have been getting clobbered. So we talked to short seller John Hempton, the CIO and co-founder of Bronte Capital, for an explanation of what's really going on.

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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.

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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.

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Home demand is booming. By some measures, the market is even hotter than it was during the peak prior to the financial crisis. But there's one big problem: There just aren't many homes available to buy. Whether it's existing inventory or new home sales, there simply isn't enough to meet the demand, even with prices surging. On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with housing economist Ali Wolf, the chief economist at the data and research firm Zonda, about how the boom happened; how America became so under-housed; and how constraints of land, labor and materials are making it brutal to build more of them.

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The world's central bankers are facing challenges the likes of which they've never seen before. We're in a unique moment for the macroeconomy, coming out of the pandemic crisis at a rapid clip. What's more, the nature of money is changing. Cryptocurrencies are on the rise. More commerce is becoming digital. The pandemic showed weaknesses in the existing payments system. On this week's episode, we speak with Hyun Song Shin, the Economic Adviser and Head of Research at the Bank for International Settlements on the future of central bank digital currencies, and other challenges they face right now.

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SPACs have been around a long time. The basic premise is that a group of people raise a bunch of money from public market investors, with the premise of then going out to buy a specific, individual company. They're seen as an alternative to IPOs. While historically they've had a reputation for some questionable deals, this year they've been booming. All kinds of big names like Bill Ackman and Paul Ryan (yes, that one) are getting in on the action. On this episode, we speak with Kelly Driscoll, one of the founders of the SPAC Fusion Acquisition Corp, who explains why these entities are so hot right now.

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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.

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It's no secret that a lot of people in finance like to bet on things. But how many of them take the time to actually beat the house in gambling? On this week's Odd Lots, we talk to Joe Peta, a former Lehman Brothers trader, and the author of "Trading Bases," a book about betting on baseball. Peta started focusing on baseball after a freak accident (getting hit by an ambulance) gave him lots of time to think about applying his trading knowledge to baseball. Eventually he launched a $1 million baseball betting fund that returned 14 percent in a year to his investors. On this episode, Peta talks to us about why baseball is uniquely suited to data analytics, how he was able to exploit market inefficiencies, and what sports betting can teach us about market structure.

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India is going to have a general election in the months ahead, and so it's important to understand the state of the economy, and what incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accomplished during his five years in office. 

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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.

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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.

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For years, the IMF was generally of the view that free trade was good, and that open capital flows were also good. But in recent years, the latter view has started to change. Increasingly the IMF, while continuing to promote openness, has viewed restricting the capital account for emerging markets as a useful tactical macro tool. On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Prakash Loungani and Sriram Balasubramanian of the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office on their examination of the IMF's work, and how its perspective has changed over the last several years. 

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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.

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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.

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The stock market has basically been a one-way ship for 20 months now. So of course, some people get nervous about that, and start wondering if we're in some unsustainable bubble that can only end badly. So what are the biggest risks lurking out there? On this episode, we speak with Richard Bookstaber, a veteran of numerous firms, having done risk management at Bridgewater, the University of California, and elsewhere. He's also the author of the book A Demon Of Our Own Design, which prophetically warned about financial system fragilities in the run-up to the Great Financial Crisis. He's currently the co-founder of Fabric, which provides risk management technology to the financial industry, and he spoke with us about where he sees the biggest risks right now.

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With just two weeks until the election, talks over a stimulus deal remain ongoing, with negotiations having picked up between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Many of the disagreements haven't been about the price tag per se, but around language on such things as a national testing strategy and workplace liability. One of the most outspoken voices on the Democrat side, urging a deal, has been California Congressman Ro Khanna whose district encompasses much of Silicon Valley. He explains why, from his perspective, it's so important to get a deal done now. We also discuss the fiscal policy priorities of a theoretical Biden administration.

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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.

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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.

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Over the last year, numerous celebrities and athletes have gotten into crypto in some way. For example, some have announced plans to put part of their salary into Bitcoin. But Brooklyn Nets star Spencer Dinwiddie has been in the space for a lot longer, having held Bitcoin for several years. And, in addition to owning Bitcoin and other coins, he's also the co-founder of a new company called Calaxy, which aims to let fans buy tokens associated with their favorite stars. On this episode, we speak with Spencer as well as his co-founder Solo Ceesay about the world of creator tokens, and how various technologies, including crypto, are changing the relationship between fans and celebs.

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Some of Silicon Valley's biggest unicorns like Uber and Slack are expected to go public this year. But when companies finally pull the trigger and launch their IPOs, what factors should you keep in mind before investing? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Rett Wallace of Triton.ai about how his company analyzes IPOs, and why some companies are going public later in their lives.

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Central banks and fiscal authorities around the world have taken extraordinary measures to stem the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis. But what’s proven most effective, and what have central banks learned over the last several months? On this episode, we speak with Hyun Song Shin, economic adviser and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements, about the new policymaker toolbox that has emerged and what more needs to be done.

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As 2024 comes to an end, Tracy and Joe once again look back at the year that was in Odd Lots. On this final episode of the year, we revisit 10 of the most fascinating, surprising and unforgettable facts and ideas that came up on the show in the last 12 months, talking about everything from chicken prices to nickel mining to private finance.

Click here to revisit these earlier 10 episodes:

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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.

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As you might have heard, so-called value investing has not had a good run. At least from a quantitative standpoint, strategies that aim to buy low-valued stocks (based on metrics such as price-to-earnings or price-to-book) are quite out of favor, as fast growing names, loaded up on intangible capital, have outperformed. So is there any way to resuscitate the concept of value, or do investors just need to wait for the tides to change? On the latest Odd Lots, we speak with Rafe Resendes, a portfolio manager and co-founder of the Applied Finance Group, who argues for another way of reconceptualizing value, beyond just cheapness, in a way that works across market environments.

What do you love about Odd Lots? What topics do you want to see on upcoming episodes? Share your feedback about the show by completing our first-ever listener survey.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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It goes without saying that 2020 was a year like no other when it comes to the markets. A historic crash, and then a raging recovery, all set against the backdrop of a pandemic and deeply depressed economy. One implication of this is that trading strategies based on historic rules and patterns didn't perform particularly well in this environment. On this episode, we speak with Corey Hoffstein, a fund manager at Newfound Research, which employs trend following and momentum signals in its trading. He talks about what worked and didn't last year and what that says about overall market structure.

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Inflation is running hot these days. But, even when the official measures were considerably cooler, there were many people who were skeptical and insisted that inflation was running hot and rampant. It turns out, nobody really experiences inflation similarly, and one's own consumption and behavioral patterns will have a big impact on their outlook. On this episode, we speak with Berkeley professor Ulrike Malmendier, whose work has shown how one's behavior (where you shop) and history (what conditions were like earlier in your life) can inform views and perceptions of inflation for years.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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One of the biggest stories in markets right now is the huge selloff in government bonds. And we're not just talking about the US here. The UK is seeing multi-year highs in long-end yields. So is Japan. And of course, the US 10-year Treasury is close to its highest level in a year, despite the recent rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. So what's going on? Is it just about inflation and growth expectations or is there more to it? On this episode, we speak to Jay Barry, head of global rates strategy at JPMorgan Securities, who breaks it all down and gives us his estimate of where fair value now stands.

Read More: Fed’s Barkin Says Term Premium Moving Long Rates, Not Inflation

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China is making steady progress in its quest to dominate key industries of the future, despite years of US tariffs, export controls and sanctions. 

Check out this special episode of Bloomberg's Big Take Asia podcast, as hosts K. Oanh Ha talks to Bloomberg News correspondent Rebecca Choong Wilkins about how the US is struggling to curb Beijing’s technological advances, and whether the upcoming presidential election could change the dynamic.

Then come back on Thursday, as Rebecca joins the next episode of Odd Lots -- along with Bloomberg economic analyst Gerard DiPippo -- to take a further look at the ongoing tech rivalry between the US and China.

Read more:
The Big Take: Efforts to Contain Xi’s Push for Tech Supremacy Are Faltering

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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.

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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?

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Back in November, we released our series called Beak Capitalism, which took a look at the entire US economy through the lens of chicken. Then we went on the Money Stuff podcast, hosted by Matt Levine and Katie Greifeld, to talk about our work. Here is a replay of that conversation, for those who missed it.

You can subscribe to the Money Stuff podcast here. 
You can listen to Beak Capitalism here, here, and here.

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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.

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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.

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Chamath Palihapitiya is the CEO of Social Capital, the Chairman of Virgin Galactic and a partial owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball team. He’s also been an outspoken critic of the way the crisis and economic recovery have been handled. In April, he famously railed against the airline bailouts in a CNBC clip that went viral. On today’s podcast, he talks to us about how he would have handled the bailout differently, and why he sees a reckoning coming for powerful tech companies in the near future.

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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.

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In a big bull market, people will overlook a lot. They'll suspend their disbelief. They'll buy into fantastical, unrealistic stories about the future. But when the momentum turns sharply the other way, all of this reverses. Then, as the cliché goes, you see who's been "swimming naked." So what have we learned from the recent market volatility? On this episode, we speak with legendary short-seller Jim Chanos, now the founder of Chanos & Co. We talk about cloud stocks and datacenters, AI, private equity, the Trump tariffs, and the strong evidence that Elon Musk isn't serious about tackling spending.

Read more: Everything You Need to Know About the Basis Trade Spooking Markets
Jim Chanos Says Biggest Risk for Markets Is DeepSeek-Like Event

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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.
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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. 

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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.

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In theory, people should want to know accurate facts about the state of the world. In practice, it's not so simple. Because of the way we evolved, and how our brains work, there are often things that we prioritize above the truth (such as fitting in with some tribal identity). On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with NYU professor Jay Van Bavel, about a new paper he co-authored titled "The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief." It explains how political ideology leads people to have distorted views of the world, and though this paper is specifically about politics, it contains important lessons for people in the market, as they seek to overcome the biases that make them bad traders and investors. 

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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 Circles
Arm Is Rebuffed by Intel After Inquiring About Buying Product Unit

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There are lots of hot areas in the market, which everybody knows. Stocks are obviously hot, as are industrial commodities like copper. Agricultural commodities are surging as well. If you look at a chart of corn or soy or even oats, they've been on a tear. One big factor: Chinese demand, in part driven by a desire to stock up on supplies. Meanwhile, China is launching agricultural futures of its own, including a new contract on hogs. On this episode, we speak about what's going on right now in agricultural commodities with Scott Irwin, an economist at the University of Illinois, who helps us break it all down.

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With developed economies still operating well below pre-crisis levels, central banks face substantial pressure to pursue stimulative policies on an ongoing basis. But what more can they do with the tools at hand? And how much do political fights get in the way? On the latest Odd Lots, we speak with Peter Praet, the former Chief Economist at the ECB, who served under Mario Draghi for almost a decade, about the lessons learned during that experience, and how they apply going forward.

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