Odd Lots
Episodes
How One Trader Won Big While Everyone Else Panicked on Black Monday
16 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On Monday October 19th, 1987, the Dow Jones fell 508 points in a one day crash that will forever be known as "Black Monday". In honor of the 30th anni...
What We Can Learn About Market Liquidity By Looking At Everyday Life
09 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"Liquidity" is one of the most widely-talked about yet least understood concepts in markets. Roughly speaking, a market is liquid if you can transact ...
Inside the Changing World of the Sell-Side Analyst
02 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The world of sell-side analysts has been upended in recent years with intense competition, new technology and regulation in the form of MIFID. At the ...
Revisiting The Strange Story Behind the Beanie Babies Bubble
25 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
To wrap up our series on financial bubbles, the Odd Lots podcast looks back at an early episode, focusing on one of the most iconic bubbles of the 20t...
The Baseball Card Bubble Can Tell You A Surprising Amount About How Markets Work
18 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There's a good chance that if you were a boy in the early 90s that you were a collector of baseball cards. For a few years, the baseball card industry...
How an Austrian Economist Explains The Tulip Bubble
11 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The tulip bubble is the quintessential bubble. If you want to call something a bubble, just mutter something about tulips, and everybody will know wha...
This Is What Happened During The Great Florida Real Estate Bubble
04 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
During the 2008 financial crisis, Florida was an epicenter of the real estate meltdown. But for decades before that, the state has been characterized ...
This Is What All Great Stock Market Bubbles And Crashes Have in Common
28 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Markets are at their most exciting when they're in a bubble. Spectacular fortunes can be made and lost in the blink of an eye. So how do bubbles form ...
What Looking Inside a Bank Archive Can Tell Us About Modern Finance
21 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Royal Bank of Scotland has been around, in one form or another, for hundreds of years. The company keeps artifacts from its lengthy history in an arch...
The Biggest Lesson Investors Should Have Learned From the Crisis
14 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It's been 10 years since the start of the credit crunch that eventually led to the global financial crisis. For many investors, the events of 2007 to ...
What Diner's Club Card Reveals About the Nature Of Money
07 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We use money everyday, but it's rare to actually think about what money is or what it represents. And in fact many of the people who are the closest t...
How The Bond Market Changed During A Veteran Trader's Decades On Wall Street
31 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Most people have some kind of hazy conception of how the stock market works. Stocks are simple to understand, and there are only so many of them out t...
What It's Like to Suddenly Become a Bond Manager in the Credit Crisis
24 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We talk a lot on Odd Lots about the idea of investing. But what's it like to actually have to put money to work in some of the trickiest investing env...
Why Wheat is the World's Most Exciting Market Right Now
17 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Financial markets around the world are stuck in a long period of low volatility and boredom. But one pocket is seeing some wild action -- grains. Spri...
How A Former Wall Street Trader Cracked The World Of Betting On Baseball
10 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
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 th...
Why a Natural Gas Company Is Shaking the World of Islamic Finance
03 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, Dana Gas, a UAE-based company, rocked the world of Islamic finance by announcing that one of its Shariah-compliant bonds was, well...
This Is What a Real-Life Wendy Rhoades Actually Does
23 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On the TV show "Billions," one of the most important characters is Wendy Rhoades, the psychologist at Axe Capital who helps traders get out of their s...
Inside The Booming World of Initial Coin Offerings
16 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
By now everyone's heard of Bitcoin, and probably has an opinion on it. But the world of cryptocurrencies has a new object of fascination: ICOs. Wherea...
The True Story Of America's Catfish Gold Rush
09 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
America has had many well-known booms and busts in its history: Real estate, internet stocks, Beanie Babies... too many to list. But did you know ther...
Why Everyone's Talking About the VIX and 50 Cent
02 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For the past few years, everyone in markets has been talking about nothing. Market moves have been subdued and the Chicago Board Options Exchange's Vo...
Poker Legend Phil Hellmuth Has Advice That Traders Should Hear
26 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Phil Hellmuth is one of poker's biggest stars. His success is undeniable, as he's won 14 bracelets at the World Series of Poker, more than anyone else...
What a 150-Year Old Indian Railway System Tells Us About Trade
19 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It's no secret that international trade has been criticized lately. But why exactly are countries generally happy to trade within their borders -- fro...
How Instagram Turned Into a Giant Market for Food
12 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Avocado toast, unicorn frappuccinos, and kale salads. Taking photos of your food and putting them on Instagram is a now a huge trend that's transformi...
How a Fund Manager's Trying to Fix Some of the Mideast's Issues
05 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When you think about the Middle East what springs to mind? Perhaps oil, maybe political instability, terrorism or even war. On this week's episode of ...
One Of The Top Chess Players Talks Computers & Options Trading
28 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we talk to Hikaru Nakamura, one of the best chess players in the world. Currently ranking in the top s...
How to Use Pop Music to Forecast the Stock Market
21 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When most people analyze the stock market, they look at stuff like revenues, earnings, valuations, and economic conditions. But some people like to lo...
What Happens When Markets As We Know Them Cease to Exist
13 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What if you woke up tomorrow and found the U.S. stock market was closed for good? That happened to investors in the Russian market after the communist...
Inside the Hidden Cycles That Rule Markets and Life
07 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
History, as you may have heard, has a tendency to repeat. But does it repeat in ways that are measurable and predictable? We speak with Peter Borish, ...
This Is How You Know When the Stock Market Is in a Bubble
31 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most fascinating market phenomenons is the bubble. When they occur, fortunes are made and lost, and the full spectrum of human emotions, fr...
How a Fund Manager Teaches His Kids About Money and Banking
27 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Plenty of people pay their kids an allowance to teach them the value of hard work and earning money. But our guest on this week’s Odd Lots podcast t...
What the Berkshires Learned by Launching its Own Currency
24 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"Buy local" is a mantra that has appeal across the political spectrum. Small communities have preached this gospel for a long time. Our current presid...
How the Biggest Bull Market Could Go on for a Whole Lot Longer
10 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago on the Odd Lots podcast, we talked to Paul Schmelzing, a Ph.D candidate at Harvard, who explained how the bull market in U.S. Treasuri...
The Incredible True Story of the Real Life 'Trading Places'
03 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
If you have any interest at all in finance, then it's mandatory to have seen the 1983 movie "Trading Places." You remember, right? Two wealthy Philade...
Could Buddhism Save The Global Economy?
24 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There's a widespread sense that something remains broken in the global economy. Despite a comeback in official measures of economic performance, like ...
How Poker Explains the Battle of Passive and Active Investing
17 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Among the biggest trends in the world of markets is the rise of passive investing. Rather than pay high fees to active mutual fund managers (who often...
Why It's Really Hard to Create a New Currency in a Revolution
10 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Creating a new form of money is always tough. Will it hold its value? Will people trust it? Will people use it? All these challenges are even tougher ...
Why Negotiating a Ransom Is the Trickiest Trade in the World
03 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There are all sorts of reasons why markets break down. A lack of trust. Incomplete information. Divergent incentives. A lack of experienced actors. So...
64: Stay in School, Even if You're Planning to Join the Mob
27 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It's almost a truism that better-educated people earn more money. But suppose you're not interested in a normal job? What if you want to go into the m...
63: This Is How Monetary Policy Works in The Islamic State
20 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Islamic State is mostly discussed in terms of its threat to the safety and security of the world. But as a geopolitical entity, its leadership has...
62: How The Biggest Bull Market Could Come Crashing Down
13 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The stock market is currently in one of its longest bull markets ever, but that doesn't hold a candle to what's going on bonds. According to Paul Schm...
61: Here's What's Going to Happen in 2017
06 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the start of the new year! 2016 defied almost everyone's expectations, but that won't stop us from making predictions for 2017. On this epi...
60: These Were the Most Interesting Stories of 2016
23 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It was quite a year, 2016! Trump and Brexit alone made it one for the history books. But there was more than political upheaval. In this end-of-year e...
59: What Sneakers Can Tell You About How Financial Markets Work
16 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
One of our favorite topics here at Odd Lots is market structure. On multiple occasions, for example, we've talked about how trading bonds is fundament...
58: Ignore Investing's Mathematical Underpinnings at Your Peril
09 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What's the optimum amount of money you should bet on a particular outcome? The answer is dictated by mathematics, yet plenty of people still go agains...
57: Was November the Start of a Huge Turning Point In Markets?
02 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Something huge happened in November. No, we're not talking about the U.S. presidential election. We mean the worst month in history for the the Bloomb...
56: How To Launch Your Own Form Of Money
25 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
By now you've probably heard of Bitcoin. But Bitcoin isn't the only digital currency. In fact, there are hundreds of "altcoins" out there, all of whic...
55: Here Are The Signs That A Civilization Is About To Collapse
18 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
All great civilizations eventually collapse. It's inevitable. So what are the signs of their demise? On the latest edition of Odd Lots, we speak with ...
54: How Trump Did Something Yellen, Draghi Could Only Dream Of
11 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There's a lot to process from last week's U.S. election. One surprising thing already is the market reaction. Equities surged following the vote, and ...
53: Why We Stopped Trusting Experts
04 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
One could argue that "expert" has become a bad word. People routinely roll their eyes at the advice of experts and sometimes mock them. Perhaps nowher...
52: What Math Models of Herding Cows Can Teach Us About Markets
28 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Investors are often said to exhibit herding behavior when they follow each other into crowded positions — creating market bubbles that are susceptib...
51: Why Everyone Is Freaking Out About Globalization
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Dani Rodrik, a professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, was writing about the downside of globalization before it was cool....
50: What Slavoj Žižek Would Say About Poker and the Peso
14 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What does psychoanalytic philosophy tell us about capitalism? In this edition of Odd Lots, we speak to Ole Bjerg, a professor at the Copenhagen Busine...
49: The Man Who Wants to Better Trading by Slowing It
12 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Brad Katsuyama has racked up oceans of newspaper ink since being propelled into the public spotlight as the protagonist of Michael Lewis's book on hig...
48: The Lost History of Financial Market Modernization
03 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How is it that stocks are traded on electronic exchanges in the blink of an eye but bonds still trade over-the-counter by phone and sometimes even by ...
47: Why it's Time to Stop Using the Word 'Disruption'
23 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
"Disruption," "incubation," "innovation"... you hear these words nonstop these days as people talk about the incredible changes taking place in societ...
46: Space Robots Are Helping Hedge Funds Invest
16 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The most valuable commodity for investors is information, and hedge funds and asset managers are going to great lengths to get it -- even to outer spa...
45: Why A Whistleblower Walked Away From Over $8 Million
12 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Could you walk away from a reward of over $8 million? The guest on our latest episode of the Odd Lots podcast did just that. Eric Ben-Artzi was a risk...
44: What a 12-Year Knows About Money That an Economist Doesn't
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
"What is money?" This seemingly simple question has the ability to drive people crazy. Is it a unit of account? Is it something about exchange? Does i...
43: Seinfeld Can Teach You Everything You Need About Economics
29 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The hit show Seinfeld is often referred to as the show about nothing, but maybe it's actually a show all about economics. Alan Grant is an associate p...
The Millennial Generation Is Stagnant And Older People Are Part
22 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In developed economies, younger generations have faced stagnant wages, mediocre employment prospects and dizzying costs of homeownership. One culprit:...
41: Billionaires Help Tell the Story of Brazil's Boom and Bust
15 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro have been tainted by protests, economic slowdown, and a massive political scandal. In this episode we take ...
40: Why Summer Has Just Gone on Sale
08 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This week is the summer edition of Odd Lots and we're talking about the market forces shaping the price of two essential ingredients for any pool part...
39: The Insurance Market for Modern-Day Pirates
29 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This week Odd Lots takes to the high seas to discuss how modern-day pirates in the form of illegal fishers are able to take out insurance policies on ...
38: The Fed Made a Massive Mistake Letting Lehman Go
25 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There's nothing better than financial crisis hindsight and earlier this month we got a big dose of it in the form of a 218-page paper by Laurence Ball...
37: Why We Are Increasingly Divided Into Ideological Bubbles
18 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The result of the U.K.'s Brexit referendum blindsided many and led to acrimonious accusations by supporters on either side of the vote. In the U.S., t...
36: How A Quant Saw Huge Changes That Took Place on Wall Street
11 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Emanuel Derman was one of the pioneers of quantitative finance, having gone from studying physics to working on Wall Street in 1985. His memoir, My Li...
36: How A Quant Saw Huge Changes That Took Place on Wall Street
11 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Emanuel Derman was one of the pioneers of quantitative finance, having gone from studying physics to working on Wall Street in 1985. His memoir, My Li...
35: There Was a Huge Opportunity The Night of the Brexit Vote
01 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the runup to the Brexit vote polls were mixed. Some showed remain winning. Others showed leave winning. Nonetheless, markets, pundits, and bookmake...
34: The Highway Built by Oil Markets and Political Intrigue
27 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On this week's episode we take a trip down one particular road on the Gulf peninsula to explore how sudden market shocks — and the political discord...
33: How ``Fed Watching'' Became a Thing
20 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen speaks, the world watches — and one group watches especially closely. ``Fed watchers'' have made a career ou...
32: The Amateur Activists Who Took On The Foreclosure Machine
13 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Great Recession was characterized by a historic and gigantic wave of foreclosures all around the country. Left and right, people were being remove...
31: Welcome Aboard Starship Bank
06 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
David Hendler made his reputation as a bank analyst at the independent research firm CreditSights Inc., foreseeing many of the problems that led to th...
30: How Finance Took Over the World
27 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. spends 8 percent of its GDP on finance -- twice the amount it did 40 years ago, according to economist Brad DeLong. That figure set off a wav...
29: How an Old-School Chess Shop Survives in Modern New York
23 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At a time when retail sales are dominated by online behemoths like Amazon Inc. and big chain stores, independent brick-and-mortar shops are under grow...
28: Finance's Hot New Thing Ended Up In An Old-School Scandal
13 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Peer-to-peer lending was supposed to disrupt the traditional way people borrowed money. Instead of going to some giant, soulless institution, online p...
27: Kentucky Derby Edition: Flip This Horse
04 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
If you're like most people, you only bet on horses once a year, the day of the Kentucky Derby. You might try to cram a little beforehand, bone up abou...
26: How To Make Money By Betting On The U.K.’s Big Referendum
02 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In less than two months, the U.K. will vote on whether to leave the EU in the so-called Brexit referendum. The stakes are potentially massive for the ...
25: Americans Are Miserable, and It's Swaying The Election
25 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How can you tell whether people in any given country are happy or not? That's the topic we wrestle with on the latest edition of the Odd Lots podcast....
24: Meet The Most Important Country Singer in Economics
15 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Country music lost a legend when Merle Haggard passed away earlier this month at the age of 78. At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much connect...
23: Iceland Jailed Its Bad Bankers But People Are Still Angry
08 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Iceland is known for geothermal beauty, fishing and as the birthplace of Bjork. It also made international headlines in 2008 thanks to a banking crisi...
22: The Unbearable Brightness of Being a Shadow Bank
04 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A high-flying hedge fund manager lost everything back in 2007 after an accounting scandal prompted investors to pull money from his $12 billion fund. ...
21: The Fraught Life of a Dumpster-Diving U.S. Short-Seller
28 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Short-selling, the practice of betting against stocks by agreeing to sell equities that you don't own, has been in the headlines recently. The share p...
20: The Time NYSE Floor Traders Tried to Prank President Reagan
21 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For years, the image of a stock market trader was synonymous with images of Testosterone-fueled traders wheeling and dealing on the floor of big excha...
Episode 19: Pow! Pow! El-Erian Talks Central Bank Ammunition
14 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Asset purchases! Currency devaluations! Low interest rates! Negative interest rates! And... more? The world's central banks have unleashed a torrent o...
Episode 18: The Obscure Report That Spawned the ETF Industry
07 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In 1987, investors watched in horror as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 22 percent in an event that became known as "Black Monday." Months la...
Episode 17: How One Analyst Uncovered a $7 Billion Fraud
29 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In late 2008, as markets tanked thanks the the global financial crisis, two massive Ponzi schemes unraveled. One was the $17.5 billion fraud engineere...
Episode 16: Making Money When Everyone Else is Losing Theirs
22 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everybody knows by now that a handful of hedge funders made a fortune by betting against housing before the market crashed back in 2008. But, people w...
How a Rural Irish Farmer Became an Expert on the Euro Crisis
16 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In theory, anyone with an internet connection can became an expert on just about anything from just about anywhere. In the latest edition of Odd Lots,...
Episode 14: The World’s Only Stand-Up Economist
08 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On today’s episode, we’re taking the “dismal” out of the dismal science by interviewing Yoram Bauman, who bills himself as the world’s only ...
Episode 13: How a Professor Won Gambling on an Obscure Sport
01 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 13: Everyone dreams of being able to win almost every time when gambling. Of course, whether it's blackjack, horse betting, poker or the stock...
Episode 12: How a Consultant Foresaw the 2015 Commodities Crash
25 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, co-host Tracy Alloway is joined by Bloomberg Markets reporter Luke Kawa for a journey back in time. As the global elite mingle at the...
Episode 11: How David Bowie Became a Financial Product
19 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When the world lost David Bowie this month, it lost one of modern music's undisputed geniuses. Less well-known is Bowie's contribution to the financia...
Episode 10: How the World Ended Up With a Boring Banana
11 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we're taking on one of the most fragile commodities markets around. No, it's not oil (though we do get to that later in the program), it's ...
Episode 9: The 2016 Predictions Episode
04 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
(Bloomberg) -- It’s a new year and a new episode of Odd Lots. Co-hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway have re-stoked our proverbial holiday fire, ...
Episode 8: These Were Our Favorite Stories of 2015
28 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
(Bloomberg) -- Gather ‘round the Odd Lots fire. Co-hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway have assembled a collection of Bloomberg News reporters an...
Episode 7: How One Woman Tried To Sound Housing Crash Alarm
21 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The film “The Big Short” has sparked lots of attention about the origins of the financial crisis and the people who saw it coming. While lot of at...
Episode 6: Meet The Man Who Made Millions Trading Mules
14 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This week we're thinking about what it means to be a trader in today's electronified markets and contrast it with trading in the era of horse and bugg...
Episode 5: 6,000 Years of Interest Rates
07 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
(Bloomberg) -- What better way to prepare for what may be the first U.S. rate hike in almost a decade than to tour 6,000 years of interest-rate histor...
Episode 4: Can a Hedge Funder Cut Prescription Drug Costs?
30 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
(Bloomberg) -- Hedge-fund manager Kyle Bass has a plan that could cut the high cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. -- and make himself a lot of mon...
Episode 3: The Strange Story Behind the Beanie Babies Bubble
23 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
(Bloomberg) -- Two market bubbles stand out from the late 1990s. Technology stocks that were supposed to make everyone a zillionaire. The other: A ser...