Odd Lots

Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Zichen Wang is the writer of the Pekingnology newsletter, which translates important speeches and articles from China into English, and contextualize...

Gillian Tett on Complex Derivatives and the Fifth Stage of Capitalism

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After the GFC, there was a lot of angst over the fact that so much effort and brainpower went into designing complex derivatives, and other financial ...

Jim Egan on the Mortgage Gap That's Dividing America

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Somehow, the American consumer remains quite strong. Despite higher interest rates, tariffs, general economic uncertainty and so forth, people are con...

The Big Gulf AI Deal That's Divided the White House

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Back in May, President Trump announced this big plan whereby American tech giants would participate in major AI projects in both Saudi Arabia and the ...

Trump Economic Advisor, Stephen Miran, on Tariffs and Tax Cuts

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration seems to have a lot of big ideas about reshaping America, including its economy. We've seen the unveiling (and delaying) of s...

Ricardo Hausmann on What it Takes to Win a Trade War

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The focus of Trump's trade policies is clearly China. There are tariffs on everyone, of course, but it's the growing Chinese manufacturing might, and ...

Vladislav Zubok on What the Cold War Actually Was

09 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

These days, it's common to talk about the emergence of a New Cold War that exists between the US and China. It's debatable whether or not this is a us...

Introducing: Everybody's Business

08 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bloomberg Businessweek brings you a smart and fun chat show about all things...business. Hosted by award-winning business and economics journalists Ma...

A Major American Egg Farm Just Lost 90% of its Chickens

07 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Egg prices have come down a lot since their recent record and bird flu has largely faded from the headlines. But the epidemic is still raging and, per...

Lots More on What America's Busiest Port is Seeing from the Trade Tariffs

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're about two months on from Liberation Day, and there's still a lot of confusion about what's going on with global trade. Some countries, like Chin...

Jersey City's Mayor on How the City Built So Much Housing

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To some extent, at least in big cities, it feels as though the cost of housing is enveloping almost everything else in terms of politics right now. Bo...

Why It's So Hard for Apple to Move Production from China to India

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump wants Apple to make iPhones in America. The company itself has talked about — and to some extent already has been — moving...

How Do We Define a Currency?

31 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What is a currency? This turns out to be one of those questions we just kind of skip over because we don't have clear answers to it (and because econo...

Krishna Memani on Wall Street's Very Expensive "Free Lunch"

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're told over and over again that the one "free lunch" in investing is diversification, and that you can improve your returns over time simply by in...

Michael Cembalest on Why AI Is the Stock Market Bet of the Century

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Cembalest has been an investment analyst for almost 40 years and his research notes have drawn a cult following on Wall Street. He's known for...

Why Asset Allocators Love Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds

26 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Multi-strategy hedge funds have been having a moment with big asset allocators pouring billions of dollars into names like Millennium and Citadel. And...

Zohran Mamdani, the Socialist Who Could Be NYC's New Mayor

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're just a month away from the hotly-contested Democratic primary for New York City Mayor. And one of the candidates -- Queens assemblyman Zohran Ma...

Why Interest Rates Are Shooting Up All Around the World

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week the big story in markets is the selloff in bonds. Yields on benchmark 10-year US Treasuries jumped 20 basis points from last Friday’s ...

Scott Bok on How Bankers Spread the Gospel of Capitalism

19 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When we think about the prospect of deglobalization (whatever that means) we often think about it in terms of the goods economy. Supply chains get rer...

Atlanta Fed's Raphael Bostic on Monetary Policy During Extreme Uncertainty

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This is obviously an extraordinarily difficult time to make economic forecasts. Nobody really knows how tariffs will affect the US economy. And beyond...

The Oil Industry's Double Whammy of Higher Costs and Lower Prices

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The new administration has a "drill, baby, drill" mantra and a much more liberal attitude towards the oil and gas industry than the last one. But that...

Perry Mehrling on Trump's Echoes of the Nixon Shock

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There's been a lot of talk recently about parallels between Donald Trump's economic policies and the Nixon Shock of the early 1970s. That was when the...

Philip Diehl on the Booming Business of Gold Coins

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gold prices have been booming and are near record highs. And seeing the line go up — especially during a period of so much uncertainty —&n...

Why the World Keeps Getting Shocked by China's Technological Progress

10 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last several years, the world has watched as China edges close to or past the technological frontier in more and more areas. Earlier this yea...

Sarah LaFleur On the Existential Threat From the Tariffs

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

America's textile industry has famously declined over the years, with a bunch of production moving to lower-cost places like China, Vietnam, and Bangl...

How China Might Actually Handle a US Trade War

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

By now, everyone recognizes that the US and China are in the middle of a trade war, with the Trump administration having imposed tariffs of as much as...

The Tariff Buzzsaw Is Coming For Hardcore Gamers

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every industry is going to be affected by the trade war in different ways. In many cases, we don't know how it's going to play out. Other industries a...

Brad Setser on the Big Surge in the Taiwanese Dollar

06 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are several markets that have really settled down since the tumult of early April. But strange, unusual things are still popping up, particularl...

Henry Blodget on AI, Dot-Coms, and What's Changed In 25 Years

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does history say about how big the AI boom can get, and who will ultimately win out? When does a boom turn into a bubble that turns into a bust? ...

Chris Hughes on How to Craft a Thriving Market

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last several years, both parties in the US have been drifting away from laissez-faire thinking about the economy, and more towards the view t...

What The 'Lentil King of Saskatchewan' Knows About World Trade

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We don't know what the end state for the tariffs are going to be, but inevitably there will be some shifts in the way that goods and dollars flow arou...

Blackstone's King of Hedge Funds on Alt Investing Right Now

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone knows by now that college endowment funds have gone big on alternative investing, pouring billions of dollars into private equity and hedge f...

Some of America's Most Important Economic Data Is Decaying

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gathering official economic data is a huge process in the best of times. But a bunch of different things have now combined to make that process even h...

What We Learned About Treasuries on the Night of April 8

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When stocks are plunging in a typical market environment, people reach for safe haven assets like US Treasuries. But we've seen that phenomenon break ...

Lots More on How TikTok Options Traders Got Quiet

26 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last few years, retail traders have gotten into options in a major way. Selling puts, buying calls, trading volatility — what used to b...

Anna Wong: Empty Shelves Are Coming Soon

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you look at most of the official hard data right now, there still isn't much evidence of a sharp downturn. Sure, all the surveys are abysmal, but t...

David Woo: What Trump Started is Worse Than a Trade War

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For the most part, Americans haven't felt much pain yet from the tariffs that Donald Trump introduced (and then partially walked back) on April 2. The...

Big Take: What a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Teaches Us About the Economy

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to measuring economic pain, the cost of a humble breakfast sandwich might not be top of mind. But Bloomberg has an index that tracks the...

This Is What President Biden's CHIPS Office Actually Did

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the stated goals for the current trade war is to build more industrial capacity in the United States. So far there doesn't seem to be much of i...

Martin Wolf on Trump's Shakeup of the Global Order

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Martin Wolf has been called one of the world's most important economics commentators, and has for decades written in columns and his own books about t...

Here's Why Uncertainty Is An Economic Killer

20 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Here's Why is Bloomberg’s short explainer podcast, where we take one big news story and break it down in just a few minutes—with help from...

Why the Pentagon Fails Audits Year After Year After Year

19 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, it was announced that the US Department of Defense had failed an audit for its seventh straight year, indicating an ongoing inability to tr...

Mitu Gulati on Whether Trump Could Restructure US Debt

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

US Treasuries are the most important market in the world. With some $29 trillion outstanding, they create the benchmark that informs basically every o...

Is This the End of the US Exceptionalism Trade?

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For years and years now, there has been one winning trade: Go long the US versus the rest of the world. Thanks to tech dynamism and general pro-growth...

Javier Blas on China's Rare Earths Dominance

15 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every time there is tension between the US and China, there are stories about China threatening to withhold exports of rare earth metals, which are su...

What an American Stove Maker Wants You to Know About US Manufacturing

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the ironies of the tariffs is that, while ostensibly the goal is to reshore US manufacturing, it's actually been US makers of physical goods th...

Introducing: Stock Movers

13 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Check out the new Stock Movers Podcast from Bloomberg. Subscribe for five-minute reports on today's winners and losers in the stock market. Liste...

Jim Chanos on Who's Getting Caught Swimming Naked

12 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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....

Lots More on Why Neil Dutta Is Sticking With His Recession Call

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, President Trump put a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for every country except China. The market, which had been in a state of deep p...

Rob Kaplan on How the Fed Will Think about the Tariffs

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, Trump pulled back from the brink on most of the reciprocal tariffs announced on April 2. The market surged. But we're still in an extrao...

Viktor Shvets on Trump's Historical, Revolutionary Moves

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How should we make sense of the Trump tariffs? They've been terrible for the stock market, obviously. Small businesses seem to hate them. Energy compa...

What Tariffs Are Doing to North American Freight

08 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Amidst Trump's dramatic tariff moves, trade in North America remains uncertain. The USMCA hasn't been completely ripped up, but the region is anxiousl...

What Trump's Tariffs Are Already Doing to World Trade

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It was just last Wednesday that President Trump announced his new tariff schedule with the rest of the world. And it's already having an effect. Compa...

Tether's CEO Speaks on His Insanely Profitable Business

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Anything crypto-related is frequently greeted with a high degree of skepticism. Within that, one of the most controversial companies for a long time h...

Brad Setser on the Damage From Trump's Gigantic Tariff Shock

05 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

He needs no introduction: When trade is in the news, we speak with Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations. Brad has been talking for awhile a...

Lots More on a Massive, Historical, Stagflationary Shock

04 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, President Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs against almost every country in the world. The size and scope was far beyond what anyone was a...

Tim Geithner on How to Fight the Next Financial Crisis

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 2008 financial crisis is fading into history, but the risks of something big happening again remain. In this episode, we speak with Tim Geithner, ...

The Growing Risk to Fed Independence That Wall St Isn't Watching

01 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, Donald Trump fired the Federal Trade Commission's two Democratic commissioners. They have since filed suit, arguing that the law that crea...

Nick Denton's Big Bet Against the United States

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Legendary media mogul Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker, is done with the US. He’s leaving New York City for good, and moving with his family t...

The Last Time Investors Really Got Excited For Tech Infrastructure

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the biggest questions hanging over the market right now is whether or not the seemingly unlimited appetite for more AI data center spending is ...

Why Brad Jacobs Is Spending $11 Billion on a Roofing Supply Business

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Brad Jacobs has made a fortune in his career buying and building big logistics companies, like United Rentals, Waste Management, XPO (trucking company...

Jim Millstein on the Massive Risks of Any 'Mar-a-Lago Accord'

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump wants higher tariffs, and he also wants more industrial production in the United States. This we know. In the meantime, a coterie of e...

Lots More With Charlie McElligott on the Sharp, Strange Selloff

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, the US market sold off sharply. The S&P 500 fell as much as 3.6% on Monday alone, entering technical correction territory. Momentum tra...

The Great Jones Act Debate

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We finally did it. We finally did an episode on the Jones Act. For years on the podcast, we've been referencing this controversial law from 1920, whic...

FTC Chief Andrew Ferguson on the Trump Vision for Antitrust

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Donald Trump won in November, one of the things that Wall Street was excited about was an expected liberalization of merger rules. There was a po...

The Original Prediction Market Was Betting on the Pope

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Prediction markets are everywhere nowadays. You can go online and bet on political outcomes, or the weather, or how long Taylor Swift will stay togeth...

Is There an Extremely Simple Fix for Affordable Housing?

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Housing affordability remains one of the single greatest sources of economic stress. Even if inflation measures were to come down, the simple cost of ...

Cathie Wood on What Comes Next in AI and Big Tech

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Markets have been selling off, with shares of tech companies like Nvidia down almost 20% so far this year. But even before the recent selloff, DeepSee...

Here Comes the Booming Chinese Biotech Sector

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve heard about Chinese EVs. You’ve heard about Chinese batteries and solar panels. And recently you learned that China is near the cut...

Trump's NIH Cuts Send Shockwaves Through the Science World

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the first moves made by the Trump administration was to change the nature of grants made by the National Institutes of Health. Under the new po...

We Just Saw Europe's Biggest Week in Decades

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week was a busy one and some of the most interesting things that happened came out of Europe, where policymakers announced up to €800 billio...

Eugene Fama and David Booth on the Birth of Modern Finance

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 1970s were a pretty eventful time in markets. There was high inflation, the end of the gold standard, and a stock market crash. There was also a b...

Ray Dalio on the Coming Crisis in US Debt

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Almost whichever way you measure it, the US has a lot of debt. And, with the Trump administration recently proposing a budget that would see US debt l...

Lots More on the Growing Risks to the US Labor Market

28 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 sect...

Goldman's Jared Cohen and George Lee on the Unprecedented Shocks in Geopolitics

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The first month of the Trump administration has been noisy and novel by basically any measure. But perhaps the biggest shockwaves have been in the rea...

Jim Bianco on What a 'Mar-a-Lago Accord' Could Mean for the Economy

25 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The so-called “Mar-a-Lago Accord” has suddenly become a hot topic on Wall Street, with some investors and analysts starting to take the id...

Here's What It Takes to Make a Great Company

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

People love listening to stories about making it big, and there are no shortage of success stories in the world of global business. There's TSMC, whic...

How Banks Turned Into Giant Synthetic Hedge Funds

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hedge funds are notorious for making big and sometimes risky trades. Banks, meanwhile, are supposed to be a lot more boring by comparison — for ...

The Plan to Get America Building Big Ships Again

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The US is a dominant force in a number of important industries, but it's been lagging behind in one crucial area: shipbuilding. Today, there are about...

This Is How Derivatives Trading Swallowed the Entire Market

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For a long time, the world of derivatives trading was a niche thing, largely occupied by professional investors who used them for hedging purposes. Du...

This Is Why People Are So in Love With Gold

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The price of gold is basically at record highs. But what is it about gold that people love so much? Why have people always craved a metal that has no ...

How the Fed Distributes Billions of Dollars in Cash

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We all know that the Federal Reserve tries to stabilize the economy by raising or cutting interest rates to balance inflation and unemployment. But th...

This Is Why It's So Hard To Cut Public Spending

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration has come into office with big ambitions to lower the size of the US deficit. So far, a number of small items have been identi...

Philip Lane on the Big Problems Facing the Euro-zone Economy

07 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There's a pretty widespread recognition that the EU is facing a bunch of economic challenges right now. Growth has been slowing and, as in many places...

This Is Palantir's Vision for Changing How the US Does Defense Spending

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we saw shares of software maker Palantir soar after reporting earnings and describing demand for AI as being "untamed." But what does Palan...

The Treasury Payment System Elon Musk Now Has Access To

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have gained access to a unit within the Treasury Department called the Bureau of Fiscal S...

The Tariff Announcement That Shocked Financial Markets

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the weekend, President Trump announced that he was following through with his plan for aggressive tariffs. Imports from Canada and Mexico will no...

Marko Kolanovic Is Back With a Warning for Stocks

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marko Kolanovic was one of the biggest names in markets, earning the nickname 'Gandalf' for some eerily prescient calls over the years. But last July ...

Lots More with Matt Levine on MicroStrategy's Infinite Money Machine

31 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone knows by now that MicroStrategy looks a lot like a giant Bitcoin ETF. Its founder, Michael Saylor, is a huge supporter of the cryptocurrency ...

Get Ready For Another Shock to Housing Affordability

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the primary drivers of elevated inflation — and the high cost of living in general — is the price of shelter. Whether you're buying...

The AI Model That Tanked the Stock Market

28 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Monday, the stock market tanked, seemingly in reaction to the emergence of DeepSeek, an open source AI model developed in China. Nvidia, the semico...

How Oaktree's Howard Marks Spots a Market Bubble

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The run-up in Big Tech stocks and all the hype over AI has put a bunch of investors on "bubble watch." One of those is Howard Marks, the co-founder an...

Why the Stock Market Might Be at Peak Concentration Risk

24 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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% ...

How Companies Are Actually Spending Money on AI Now

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In theory, all of this AI spending has to deliver some kind of return. Companies (or other end users) will have to get tangible value from its outputs...

Introducing: Trumponomics

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tariffs, crypto, deregulation, tax cuts, protectionism, are just some of the things back on the table when Donald Trump returns to the Presidency. To ...

This Is What the Crypto Industry Actually Wants From Trump

20 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We all know that the new Trump administration is likely to be more friendly to the crypto industry than the Biden administration was. And we know that...

Lots More with Lev Menand on the Eurodollar Market Now

17 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Odd Lots has been exploring the history of the eurodollar market in a special three-part series hosted by Columbia Law School's Lev Menand and the New...

The Hidden History of Eurodollars, Part 3: Spinning Out of Control

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this special three-part series, Odd Lots is exploring the history of the eurodollar market. By the 1970s, eurodollars are hitting the headlines &md...

The Hidden History of Eurodollars, Part 2: Defending the Dollar System

15 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this special three-part series, Odd Lots is exploring the history of the eurodollar market. As we enter the turbulent 1960s, the eurodollar market ...

The Hidden History of Eurodollars, Part 1: Cold War Origins

14 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At more than $10 trillion outstanding, the eurodollar market is one of the biggest forms of shadow banking activity out there. It's also one of the mo...