Odd Lots

By Bloomberg News

What's Odd Lots about?

Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway take you on a not-so random weekly walk through hot topics in markets, finance and economics.

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What Bitcoin Has To Do With...

07.08.2019

Bitcoin has been around for roughly a decade now, but people have been working on the dream of an anonymous, digital currency for a lot longer than that. On this week's Odd Lots, we speak with NYU professor Finn Brunton, ...

Odd Lots episodes:

07.08.2019 What Bitcoin Has To Do With The Dream Of Cryonics Bitcoin has been around for roughly a decade now, but people have been working on the dream of an anonymous, digital currency for a lot longer than that. On this week's Odd Lots, we speak with NYU professor Finn Brunton, ...
07.01.2019 Why a Strong Dollar Causes Most of the World Major Pain The vast majority of global trade is still denominated in U.S. dollars, making cross-border flows about currencies as much as manufactured goods. On this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Hyun Song Shin, economic adviser and ...
06.24.2019 One of Hong Kong's Most Famous Investors Gives His Vision of the City's Future There's been a series of historic marches in Hong Kong, with millions of people taking to the streets to protest against an extradition bill that they think will give China more power over the city. On this episode of Odd ...
06.17.2019 How Auction Guarantees Are Changing The World Of Art Famous, unique pieces of art are inherently illiquid. They don't sell very often, and pricing is inherently difficult to estimate. Nonetheless, it's a huge business, and investors have been attempting for a long time to turn art into a proper ...
06.10.2019 What Boy Band Sensation BTS Can Teach Us About Economics South Korean boy band BTS is rarely connected to economics, but as the biggest success to come out of K-Pop, it arguably should be. On this week's episode of Odd Lots, we speak to Euny Hong, the author of 'The ...
06.03.2019 Why President Trump's Move Against Huawei Is Such A Big Deal Earlier this month, President Trump escalated the trade tensions against China by limiting exports of U.S. technology to Huawei. But what is Huawei, and why is this such a big deal? On this week's episode, we speak to Dan Wang, ...
05.29.2019 Bloomberg Presents "What Goes Up" “What Goes Up” is a new show from Bloomberg that tracks the main themes influencing global markets. Hosts Sarah Ponczek and Mike Regan speak with guests about the wildest movements in markets and what they mean for your investments. The ...
05.27.2019 Meet The Godfather Of Cryptocurrency Bitcoin has been around for about ten years. But the dream of a decentralized, anonymous digital currency has been around for decades. On this week's podcast, we speak with one of the original godfathers of the space, David Chaum, an ...
05.23.2019 Bloomberg and Wondery Present: The Shrink Next Door Marty Markowitz had his share of problems. His parents had recently died. He had troubles at work. A failing relationship. He needed someone to help him through this rough patch in his life. So he decided to get some professional ...
05.20.2019 Behind the Scenes of Financial Fraud 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 ...
05.13.2019 What the Russian Revolution Can Teach Us About Bond Bubbles 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 ...
05.09.2019 Introducing: Business of Bees These days about one in three bites of food you eat wouldn’t be possible without commercial bee pollination. And the economic value of insect pollination worldwide is estimated to be about $217 billion. But as important as bees have become ...
05.06.2019 How A Poker Pro 'Reads' His Opponents Whenever poker is depicted on a TV show or in a movie there's a lot of emphasis placed on the art and science of reading the physical cues that players give off accidentally when attempting to conceal the motivations behind ...
04.29.2019 What Will Crypto’s Market Structure Look Like? Recently, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance delisted a Bitcoin offshoot, causing its price to fall. Crypto’s market structure is still in its early days, and the move raises questions around decentralization and the power of exchanges. Alex Gordon-Brander has been thinking ...
04.22.2019 The End of An Era for Odd Lots No, no, don't worry, the Odd Lots podcast isn't coming to an end. But for actual odd lots -- trades of securities in unusually-sized increments -- it's the end of an era. Some major banks announced recently that they're getting ...
04.17.2019 Introducing "What Goes Up," A New Show From Bloomberg On this new show from Bloomberg, hosts Mike Regan and Sarah Ponczek speak with expert guests each week about the main themes influencing global markets. They explore everything from stocks to bonds to currencies and commodities, and how each asset ...
04.15.2019 Why Foreign Investors Cooled On U.S. Debt There's something wrong with prices in funding and bond markets, according to this week's Odd Lots guest. Zoltan Pozsar is a former adviser to the U.S. Treasury turned strategist at Credit Suisse. He argues that sweeping changes in the world's ...
04.08.2019 MMT And Emerging Markets In discussions about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) you often hear that while it may be true that the U.S. has the space to expand its deficits significantly, that it doesn't apply to emerging markets. On this week's episode of the ...
04.01.2019 From MMT Advocate To Outspoken Critic Cullen Roche, the author of the financial blog Pragmatic Capitalism, explains why he went from an adherent of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to one of its loudest critics.
03.25.2019 A Critic of Cryptocurrencies Says Bitcoin Needs To Be Burnt With Fire There's a problem in many debates about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. While many people are inclined to dismiss them as fraudulent ponzi schemes, most of those critics aren't particularly well informed by them, so their dismissals are hollow and uncompelling. ...
03.18.2019 The Evolution Of The Online Brokerage Business The online brokerage business burst on the scene in the late 90s, as at-home traders were lured to try their hand at winning big in the stock market. These days, investors are inundated with the message that they shouldn't try ...
03.11.2019 What's Next For Chinese Trade Talks China is front and center in the news again, thanks to the trade negotiations, as well as the National People's Congress, during which the government said it would target GDP growth between 6 and 6.5 percent. Brad Setser of the ...
03.04.2019 Canada's Cannabis Market So Far In mid-October last year, recreational cannabis became legal in Canada. Of course, there are all kinds of complications with any attempt to introduce such a new market. On this week's episode, we speak to Craig Wiggins, a member of a ...
02.25.2019 How To Analyze An IPO 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 ...
02.18.2019 Tech Stock Bubbles In the 17th Century Jamie Catherwood is an investment analyst at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. He's also a major financial history buff, and tells us the story of the tech stock bubble in the 17th century, when investors went crazy for schemes that ...
02.13.2019 A Message from The Pay Check The Pay Check is collecting stories for our upcoming season, and we want to hear from you! Did having a kid change your career trajectory or the way you work? If you have anything you want to share, call and ...
02.11.2019 Understanding The Big Tech Stocks For years, the key to beating the stock market was to invest a lot in the big tech stocks like Facebook and Apple. But in 2018, they stumbled hard, amid a general selloff in the market, concerns about their growth ...
02.04.2019 What To Know Ahead Of India's Election 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.
01.28.2019 How Does The Chinese Economy Work? Matt Boesler, an economics reporter for Bloomberg, had the opportunity to report from Beijing for a few months in 2018. He shares with us his experience there, and what he learned from the opportunity.
01.21.2019 The 1MDB Scandal And The Nature of Debt At the heart of government debt is a promise to pay back creditors. But governments sometimes don't do this - either by defaulting on their bonds or restructuring their debt. How are these decisions made? And what happens to borrowings ...
01.14.2019 Making Bitcoin A Currency People Use Even at Bitcoin’s recent peak, there was very little active use of the cryptocurrency in normal commerce. On this week's episode, we speak with Bitcoin maximalist Pierre Rochard of Bitcoin Advisory on why he's still a believer in the currency, ...
01.09.2019 Introducing "Works For Me," A New Podcast From Bloomberg On this new show from Bloomberg, hosts Francesca Levy and Rebecca Greenfield navigate the productivity industry by way of their own experiences. In each episode, one of the two becomes a human guinea pig as she tries to solve a ...
01.07.2019 He Rode The Bitcoin Boom All The Way Up, And Down The last two years have been an extraordinary ride for Bitcoin. It exploded in 2017, with the price nearing $20,000 per coin. Then in 2018 it totally collapsed. On this week's episode, we speak with Peter McCormack, a bitcoin trader, ...
12.31.2018 This is What Traders Will Be Watching In 2019 After a volatile 2018, few people in the market expect calm to return anytime soon. Politics, the Fed, and trade will continue to be major sources of uncertainty. And of course there will be numerous events that nobody is thinking ...
12.24.2018 These Were The Most Important Stories for Traders In 2018 2018 will go down as one of the most pivotal for financial markets since the financial crisis. We saw the return of significant volatility, amid poor returns in several asset classes. On this week's episode, host Joe Weisenthal speaks with ...
12.17.2018 How Passive Investing Could Change Capitalism The biggest macro trend in investing is the rise of so-called "passive investing." But while this may have advantages for the individual investor, it raises a whole new host of issues, such as elevating the role of index designers, and ...
12.10.2018 The Market's Big Bet on Low Volatility The past couple months have seen the return of volatility in markets. On this edition of Odd Lots, we speak to Chris Cole, the founder of Artemis Capital Management and a long-time watcher of volatility. Cole has argued that a ...
12.03.2018 How To Analyze The Currency Markets With assets like stocks and bonds, there are clear techniques you can use to value them. But what about currencies? They don't produce cash flows. They don't offer any particular claim on assets. They're all priced relative to other currencies. ...
11.26.2018 How Paul Volcker Views His Life Paul Volcker is widely-regarded as single-handedly halting a period of severe inflation in the U.S. during the late 1970s and early 1980s. But the former chairmen of the Federal Reserve’s reputation wasn't always so secure. So how does he view ...
11.19.2018 Why Blockchain May Never Benefit Corporations For years, a common mantra among corporate executives has been that "the blockchain," the technology underlying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, is where the real value lies in the future. But on this week's episode of Odd Lots, we speak to ...
11.12.2018 This Is How The Unicorn Bubble Will Burst So-called "unicorns" have become household names in recent years. Multi-billion dollar companies like AirBNB, Uber, and WeWork have become known for phenomenal growth, extraordinary valuations, and a general dearth of profits. That means these companies have been reliant on accommodative ...
11.06.2018 Travel Genius, a New Show From Bloomberg What’s the most sure-fire way to get a flight upgrade? How can you find the best, secret local restaurants by asking just one question? What's the first thing you should do when you get into a hotel room? On Bloomberg's ...
11.05.2018 How The Original Rogue Trader Rebuilt His Life If there's one person associated with the term "Rogue Trader" it's Nick Leeson, who singlehandedly brought down Barings Bank in the early 90s, following a series of efforts to cover up bad trades. After the collapse of the bank, he ...
11.02.2018 Prognosis, a New Show From Bloomberg Where does a medical cure come from? 100 years ago, it wasn't uncommon for scientists to test medicines by taking a dose themselves. As medical technologies get cheaper and more accessible, patients and DIY tinkerers are trying something similar—and mainstream ...
10.29.2018 Why Eurodollars Might Be Ground Zero for De-Globalization Eurodollars have nothing to do with the euro-dollar exchange rate. Instead, they're effectively a source of dollars that operates outside the control of the U.S. Jeff Snider, Head of Global Research at Alhambra, has a theory that recent market volatility ...
10.24.2018 Coming Soon: The New Economy 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 ...
10.22.2018 What Will China’s Economy Look Like In 10 Years? China has a plan for how it wants to transform into a modern economy. But the future of China’s economy is complicated both by internal factors like debt-fueled growth, as well as external challenges like a potentially drawn out trade ...
10.19.2018 Coming Soon: The ETF Story The creation story of the first exchange-traded fund is actually the best way to understand how they work. And it's not just educational, it's entertaining. Like the PC and the MP3, the story of the creation of SPY -- which ...
10.15.2018 How To Analyze A Marijuana Stock Marijuana stocks have been on a tear recently, as investors bet on the explosion of a brand new, legalizing market. But, how should investors actually go about trying to figure out which companies are well run and in a position ...
10.08.2018 Saudi Arabia's IPO Drama A little over two years ago, Saudi Arabia revealed plans to IPO part of its huge state-owned national oil company. The listing would have been the largest in history and a centerpiece of the Kingdom's efforts to reduce its reliance ...

Older episodes

Odd Lots

What's Odd Lots about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Odd Lots episodes:

What Bitcoin Has To Do With The Dream Of Cryonics

Why a Strong Dollar Causes Most of the World Major Pain

One of Hong Kong's Most Famous Investors Gives His Vision of the City's Future

How Auction Guarantees Are Changing The World Of Art

What Boy Band Sensation BTS Can Teach Us About Economics

Why President Trump's Move Against Huawei Is Such A Big Deal

Bloomberg Presents "What Goes Up"

Meet The Godfather Of Cryptocurrency

Bloomberg and Wondery Present: The Shrink Next Door

Behind the Scenes of Financial Fraud

What the Russian Revolution Can Teach Us About Bond Bubbles

Introducing: Business of Bees

How A Poker Pro 'Reads' His Opponents

What Will Crypto’s Market Structure Look Like?

The End of An Era for Odd Lots

Introducing "What Goes Up," A New Show From Bloomberg

Why Foreign Investors Cooled On U.S. Debt

MMT And Emerging Markets

From MMT Advocate To Outspoken Critic

A Critic of Cryptocurrencies Says Bitcoin Needs To Be Burnt With Fire

The Evolution Of The Online Brokerage Business

What's Next For Chinese Trade Talks

Canada's Cannabis Market So Far

How To Analyze An IPO

Tech Stock Bubbles In the 17th Century

A Message from The Pay Check

Understanding The Big Tech Stocks

What To Know Ahead Of India's Election

How Does The Chinese Economy Work?

The 1MDB Scandal And The Nature of Debt

Making Bitcoin A Currency People Use

Introducing "Works For Me," A New Podcast From Bloomberg

He Rode The Bitcoin Boom All The Way Up, And Down

This is What Traders Will Be Watching In 2019

These Were The Most Important Stories for Traders In 2018

How Passive Investing Could Change Capitalism

The Market's Big Bet on Low Volatility

How To Analyze The Currency Markets

How Paul Volcker Views His Life

Why Blockchain May Never Benefit Corporations

This Is How The Unicorn Bubble Will Burst

Travel Genius, a New Show From Bloomberg

How The Original Rogue Trader Rebuilt His Life

Prognosis, a New Show From Bloomberg

Why Eurodollars Might Be Ground Zero for De-Globalization

Coming Soon: The New Economy

What Will China’s Economy Look Like In 10 Years?

Coming Soon: The ETF Story

How To Analyze A Marijuana Stock

Saudi Arabia's IPO Drama

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