Odd Lots

What Complexity Economics Can Add to Our View of the World

22 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past year it's become clear that traditional economics doesn't necessarily do a great job of accounting for real world problems like transpor...

Why Everyone's Experience Of Inflation Is So Different

19 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Inflation is running hot these days. But, even when the official measures were considerably cooler, there were many people who were skeptical and insi...

Vlad Zamfir on the Dangers of Unstoppable Software and What People Get Wrong About Blockchains

15 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vlad Zamfir is something of a crypto legend. The researcher was early into Bitcoin, and he was part of the Ethereum Foundation before it launched. He'...

The Labor Episode: How the Omni Hotel Chain Is Dealing With Hiring Right Now

12 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

One of the big stories in the economy right now is the high number of unfilled job openings in the leisure and hospitality sectors. There are numerous...

Steve Keen Says Economists Get Everything Wrong (Especially About Climate Change)

08 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mainstream economics has come under attack lately. People have begun questioning its understanding of things like inflation, monetary policy, deficits...

Ryan Holiday on Opening a Bookstore During a Pandemic

05 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bookstores typically aren't seen as the most attractive businesses in the year 2021. Add in the pandemic, and that makes it even tougher. And if you'r...

This Is the Vision for DeFi Built on Bitcoin

01 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There's a lot of hype about so-called DeFi (decentralized finance) these days, and much of it is based on enthusiasm over what can be built on Ethereu...

Tom Schmidt Explains What You Need to Know about DeFi

28 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 real...

Hyun Song Shin on CBDCs and the Future of Central Banking

24 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

The Trucking Episode: Why the Industry Is Such a Mess

21 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

You can't talk about the problems in logistics and supply chains right now without talking about trucking. Once goods are unloaded from ships, trucks ...

Why Ram Parameswaran Says the World's Biggest Tech Stocks Are Ridiculously Cheap Right Now

17 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone knows that tech stocks performed amazingly well amid the coronavirus crisis. In the last few months, there's been a little bit of a cooling o...

Why Tracy Can't Ship a Teddy Bear from Hong Kong to the U.S. Right Now

14 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

By this point, you're aware that shipping anything internationally is pretty tough right now. It turns out, it's getting worse. Earlier in the year, T...

Why Brooklyn Nets Star Spencer Dinwiddie Co-Founded a Crypto Startup

10 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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...

This Is How the U.S. Ran Out of Homes for Sale

07 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 pro...

Dan Ariely on How To Win Big by Betting on Human Capital

03 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dan Ariely is one of the most famous behavioral economists in the world. And in his latest act, he's attempted to apply his research to investing. His...

Roshun Patel on What Really Happened During the Crypto Market Crash

31 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The crypto market recently experienced one of its worst crashes ever, with numerous coins cut in half in a manner of days, seemingly without an obviou...

Data Centers, Crypto Miners, and Gamers Are All Battling for Semiconductors

27 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

These days, there's a shortage of chips everywhere you look. Some of it is related to idiosyncratic events specifically related to logistics. Some of ...

Daniela Gabor on the Critical Case Against Private Sector ESG

24 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last few years, ESG has become a gigantic industry. Due to concerns over climate, the treatment of workers, and other public matters, there's...

Aaron Lammer on Yield Farming and Trading in the World of DeFi

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"Decentralized Finance," "Yield farming"... you've probably heard these terms before, but have very little idea about how they all work. On a recent e...

How the World's Companies Wound Up in a Deepening Supply Chain Nightmare

17 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

By now, everybody knows that global supply chains are a mess. Not a day goes by where there isn't news of some shortage or bottleneck. Chips, shipping...

Jared Bernstein on Taxes, Spending, and Why President Biden Wants to 'Pay for It'

13 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jared Bernstein has been a longtime advisor to President Joe Biden. He was his advisor while Biden was Vice President, and today he serves on the Coun...

A Special Announcement From Joe and Tracy

11 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Please check out this special announcement from Joe and Tracy, who have an update on a new Odd Lots initiative, involving a new blog, show transcripts...

Viktor Shvets on Inflation and How Crypto Could Cause the Next Financial Crisis

10 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What will the economy really look like when things normalize? Lots of people are, of course, anticipating a sustained rise in inflation, even beyond t...

Hayden Adams Explains Uniswap and the Rise of DeFi

06 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There's an irony with crypto. While so much of it is ostensibly about circumventing legacy finance, many of the most important pieces of crypto infras...

How to Make the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Boom Again

03 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This year, everyone's become aware of the hollowing out of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing capacity. Whether it's the rise of TSMC, the stumbles at I...

What Adam Tooze Learned About the World Last Year

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There's probably nobody better at synthesizing massive events like Columbia professor Adam Tooze. His book Crashed, which came out in 2018, was probab...

Why the Price of Lumber Has Soared Day After Day After Day

26 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's not often that lumber becomes a national obsession. But this year it has. Thanks to a combination of factors, including diminished sawmill capaci...

How to Build a Portfolio That Outperforms For a Century

22 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There's a huge question mark at the moment about whether markets are at some sort of important turning point. For instance, we've seen big amounts of ...

John Hempton on Greensill, Archegos and What It's Like To Short Right Now

19 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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. T...

Zach Carter on the Real Story of Weimar Hyperinflation

15 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Slavoj Žižek on GameStop, WallStreetBets, and the Future of Capitalism

12 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When GameStop shares skyrocketed earlier this year, numerous pundits were quick to ascribe political significance to the whole thing. Was it a rebelli...

Why Treasury Market Spasms That Shouldn't Happen Keep Happening

08 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. Treasury market is the biggest, most liquid market in the world. Its smooth functioning is also crucial to the economy and the financial syst...

Why the True Price of a Bond Can Still Be Hard To Know

05 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the modern age, we expect to be able to turn on our computers, enter in a ticker, and know the actual price of a financial instrument, such as a st...

The Ex-Jane Street Trader Who's Building a Multi-Billion Crypto Empire

01 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The crypto market has come a long way in recent years. But it's still far less efficient than your typical established market. To understand more abou...

How Gigantic Ships Are Creating Global Supply Chain Havoc

31 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Ever Given has been freed from the Suez Canal. But the whole situation was indicative of a broader issue in global supply chains: increasingly lar...

Virtu CEO Doug Cifu Explains Payment for Order Flow and the Future of HFT

29 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When the GameStop and Robinhood story exploded at the end of January, suddenly everyone took an interest in market structure and things like payment f...

Josh Younger on the Soaring Cost of Climate Change and Understanding the SLR

25 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is the connection between the big trend in interest rates over the last several years and the cost of climate change mitigation? This is a questi...

Luke Kawa on the Macro Situation Right Now

22 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last several weeks, we've seen major developments in the macro situation. The vaccine rollout has accelerated. We've gotten a stimulus. The e...

Stephanie Kelton on How MMT Won the Fiscal Policy Debate

18 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In a sense, Modern Monetary Theory has won. This is not because policy measures are necessarily in line with what MMT adherents would prescribe. Rathe...

Did We Just Experience a Break in the Neoliberal Consensus?

15 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, the dominant economic philosophy of the United States has been that fiscal policy should be relatively inert, and that the Fed should be ...

Introducing: Doubt

12 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 que...

Michael Pettis on Persistent Imbalances in Post-Pandemic China

11 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

By some measures, the Chinese economy did better in 2020 than just about anywhere else. For one thing, it actually grew last year. Also because of the...

Why Music Back Catalogs Have Become a Red-Hot Asset Class

08 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bob Dylan did it last year. Shakira did it in January. More and more famous musicians are selling off the rights to their back catalogs to investors. ...

Coming Soon: The Pay Check Season 3

05 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

More than 150 years after the end of slavery in the U.S., the net worth of a typical white family is nearly six times greater than that of the average...

Zoltan Pozsar on What Just Happened with the Treasury Market

04 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Treasury market just experienced what some might call a tantrum. Across the yield curve, we saw rates shoot up. And it's not even clear why it hap...

Howard Lindzon Tells Us Why He Launched His Own SPAC

01 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

SPACs, sometimes referred to as blank check companies, are incredibly hot. After being a sort of sleepy and sometimes sketchy backwater of the finance...

How Chinese Buying Is Causing a Boom in Agricultural Commodities

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There are lots of hot areas in the market, which everybody knows. Stocks are obviously hot, as are industrial commodities like copper. Agricultural co...

This Is How the World Ended up with a Shortage of Semiconductors

22 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The world is facing a chip shortage. Numerous companies, including the auto sector, are facing an inability to get semiconductors, hampering their abi...

A Value Manager on How Most Value Managers Are Getting It All Wrong

18 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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-val...

How Boring Food and Beverage Companies Turn into Huge Stock Winners Year after Year

17 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During the worst of the pandemic, people loaded up on staples from their grocery store. Shelf-stable food items, beverages, canned tuna, canned soup, ...

How Monster Beverage Shares Soared a Monster 100,000% in the Last 20 Years

15 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When you think about the big winners in the stock market over the past couple of decades, you might think about Amazon or Apple or some other tech win...

ARK's Head of Research on How They Find the Next Huge Winner

11 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 on...

Mike Novogratz's Vision for Rebuilding Finance with Crypto

08 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bitcoin, and crypto more broadly, have been on a huge tear lately. Then, with the chaos surrounding GameStop, there's been more discussion about wheth...

Goldman's Jeff Currie on the Silver Squeeze and the Coming Boom in Commodities

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's been a weird several days in the market. What started with a short squeeze in GameStop, driven by Reddit traders, somehow morphed into a huge sur...

Benn Eifert Explains How Retail Trading Is Rocking Markets like Never Before

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We know that retail activity, much of it on Robinhood, has been surging since last spring once the lockdowns began. But just how big of an impact is i...

Is The GameStop Trade Really A Political Rebellion?

02 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The GameStop short squeeze is one of the most extraordinary events to ever happen in markets. But does it have political significance? Some are saying...

Can Open-Source Semiconductors Upend the Chip Industry?

01 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We're seeing historic change happening in real time in the chip industry. The old leaders are going away, and new players and new models are emerging,...

How One Online Investor Made the Score of a Lifetime on GameStop

29 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone is talking about GameStop. The physical games retailer that was left for dead has been one of the hottest stocks of the year, surging well ov...

Dan Wang on China's Mission to Be a World Leader in Semiconductors

28 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We've been talking a lot on the podcast about semiconductors. The stumble of Intel. The general troubles with US manufacturing, and, of course, the ri...

The Story of How TSMC Came to Dominate the World

25 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In every conversation about computer chips, it always comes back to the dominant player: TSMC. Founded in the 1980s, it's far and away the biggest and...

The Important Lesson a Quant Manager Learned in 2020

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Why the Cost of Shipping Goods From China Is Suddenly Soaring

18 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The coronavirus crisis snarled global shipping in early 2020 as borders were closed, but lots of people expected it to improve as vessels returned to ...

How the U.S. Lost Chip Dominance and How It Can Be Regained

14 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. was once a manufacturing leader in semiconductors. That's no longer the case, given the rise of contract manufacturing and outsourcing, the d...

Cowen's Co-President on Why SPACs Are Having Such a Moment

11 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

One of the surprising developments in the last year was the boom in SPACs. The so-called blank check companies raised more money in 2020 than they had...

Chess Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura on Twitch Streaming and “The Queen's Gambit”

07 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We're in a rare moment where chess is popular in the United States. There are two big factors driving it. One is the smash hit Netflix show "The Queen...

What Happened to Europe's Economy After the Black Death

04 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's been pointed out that, after the Black Death in Europe, real wages surged because there was such a shortage of labor in the aftermath. But what w...

This Is How Prejudice Can Hinder the Economy

31 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Economics is all about improving living standards, but rarely does the dismal science deal with social justice or talk about how a lack of it could ac...

Goldman's Jan Hatzius on the Lessons Learned in 2020

28 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

2020 has been an absolutely extraordinary year for the economy. In March, we saw the fastest economic contraction in history with an extraordinary sur...

Michael Saylor, the CEO Who Turned a Software Company Into a Bitcoin Company

24 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This past summer, the business intelligence software company MicroStrategy made waves when it put some of its extra cash into Bitcoin. Then, as Bitcoi...

Camille Fournier on Building Tech at Two Sigma

21 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We talk a lot about quantitative trading on the podcast, but typically from a rather big picture perspective, and not at the level of actually buildin...

Apple Is at the Cutting Edge of a Revolution in Chips

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On a recent episode of Odd Lots, we talked about Intel, and how the former dominant American semiconductor company was stumbling. But big things are h...

This Is the Macro Picture Going Into 2021

14 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It's obviously been an extraordinary year for markets and the economy for reasons that don't need stating at this point. But what does 2021 have in st...

Why Africa Borrowed Billions of Dollars From China

10 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It's no secret that some African nations went on a borrowing spree in recent years, tapping both international markets and sovereign lenders such as C...

Why the IMF Changed Its Views on Capital Controls

07 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 vie...

Former ECB Chief Economist Peter Praet on What's Next For Central Banks

03 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With developed economies still operating well below pre-crisis levels, central banks face substantial pressure to pursue stimulative policies on an on...

How the Number One U.S. Semiconductor Company Stumbled

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For years, Intel has been the pre-eminent U.S. semiconductor company. But lately, the company has stumbled. This past summer, shares in the company pl...

How Money Became A Form Of Social Media

26 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There are many similarities between cryptocurrencies and social networks. And the rise of payment apps like Venmo make the link between payments and s...

Inigo Fraser-Jenkins and Aaron Brown Debate The Future Of Quant Investing

23 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Traditional quant strategies that try to screen for stocks that are "cheap" have had an extremely rough period. So is this just a temporary setback th...

The Episode That Turned Tracy Into A Bitcoin Bull

19 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Bitcoin has been on a tear lately, but it's been a bit unclear as to what's driving it. But whatever's driving it, co-host Tracy Alloway has given up ...

This Is How People Really Feel About Paying Taxes

16 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The politics of taxes are always fraught. In theory, everyone wants to pay less of them and bristle at the prospect of paying more. But it turns out t...

A Political Reporter Argues That Wall Street Doesn't Get DC

12 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Investors have always had to pay attention to what's going on in Washington DC, but this year it's been on a whole new level. Between virus response p...

This Is The NYSE's Plan To Win More Direct Listings

09 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This year's stock market boom has coincided with a boom in new listings. There have been plenty of IPOs, numerous SPACs, and an uptick in companies do...

Michael Mauboussin On Valuing Intangible Assets

05 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Measuring a company's book value is a classic practice among investors seeking to understand how much a firm's actual assets are worth. But what happe...

A Forensic Accountant On Why Chinese Internet Companies Are So Tough To Analyze

02 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The IPO of Ant Financial will go down as one of the most extraordinary deals of all time. And in general, Chinese internet companies have been huge wi...

Lessons From Ruth Krivoy, the Former Head of Venezuela's Central Bank

29 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The COVID-19 crisis has pushed central banks around the world into uncharted territory. Typically when we talk about this, it's from the perspective o...

JPMorgan's Josh Younger on Rate Derivatives and Volatility Ahead of the Election

26 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For months now, traders have been positioning for a major volatility spike around the November election. But what are markets really expecting, and ho...

Benoît Cœuré On Central Bank Digital Currencies And The Future Of Monetary Policy

22 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Central banks around the world are increasingly launching pilot projects to explore the possibility of issuing digital currencies. But how would they ...

Rep. Ro Khanna On Why Democrats Should Cut A Stimulus Deal With The White House

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With just two weeks until the election, talks over a stimulus deal remain ongoing, with negotiations having picked up between House Speaker Nancy Pelo...

A Volatility Arbitrage Trader On What Markets Are Saying Right Now

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It's been an extraordinary year for traders of volatility. We had the crisis, we had this incredible surge in retail call options buying, and we have ...

How Tobacco Became One Of The Greatest Investments In History

15 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For over a century, tobacco stocks have been among the greatest investments in history, consistently outperforming other sectors decade after decade. ...

Michael Hudson On Why The US Risks Becoming The Next Greece

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, you heard a lot of talk about the US becoming like Greece unless the budget deficit were brought under cont...

What It Takes To Win At Quant Investing

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Interest in quantitative investing strategies continues to grow; however, as the space gets more competitive, making money and winning gets harder and...

An IMF Economist On The Challenge Of Finding The Neutral Rate Of Interest

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of the guiding lights of Fed policy over the years has been the so-called Neutral Rate of Interest or R*. It's at this rate, theoretically, where ...

Volatility Suppression Turned The Entire Economy Into One Big Carry Trade

01 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a carry trade, an investor borrows money cheaply to buy an asset that yields more. As long as nothing changes overall, the investors get to pocket ...

How All Financial Markets Turned Into The Same Big Trade

28 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

These days it seems like all financial markets are the same big trade. A gold chart looks like a Tesla chart, which looks like an Ethereum chart, whic...

This Is What Happened When They Tried To Fix Journalism Using Blockchain

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Back in 2017, during the Bitcoin boom, there were a number of different attempts to use blockchain technology to improve a host of businesses and indu...

A Top Crypto Exchange CEO Explains Why The 2020 Boom Is Different

21 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Crypto is hot this year again. In 2020, we've not only seen a substantial rally across a lot of different coins, there's been an emergency of new expe...

How Traders Used Google Searches To See The Economic Recovery In Real Time

17 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The use of so-called "alternative data" has been gathering attention for some time. Investors have been looking at things like credit cards or satelli...

How SoftBank And Robinhooders Added Fuel To The Stock Market Boom

14 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most intriguing subplots to the 2020 stock market boom has been the speculative fervor with which investors have dived into this market. An...

Why Blank Check Companies Are The Hottest Thing This Year

10 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...