Boxes and Lines

Most people know Aaron Burr as the man who killed Alexander Hamilton. But what if that's the least interesting thing about him? In this special Fourth of July B&L re-release celebrating America's 250th birthday, Jayme Abrahamsen (IEX Exchange Business Development) and Andy Kaplan (Greenlight Capital and Freedom's Edge Cider) explore how Aaron Burr became one of history's greatest villains and...

What happens when $84 trillion changes hands? In this episode of Boxes and Lines, Ronan and JR talk with Stephanie Luedke, Head of Private Wealth at Neuberger Berman, about the forces reshaping wealth management. Stephanie discusses the massive generational transfer of wealth underway between boomers, Gen X, and millennials, how younger investors are changing expectations around values-based inves...

Ronan and JR sit down with Ben Carlson, Director of Institutional Asset Management at Ritholtz Wealth Management, co-host of the Animal Spirits podcast, and author of the new investing book Risk and Reward. The book uncovers one of the hardest truths in investing: there’s no secret formula. Ben gets into how investor behavior matters more than stock picking, how volatility and uncertainty shape de...

Ronan's boyhood dreams come true when New York Giant Phil McConkey, who was part of the team's 1986 championship win, stops by Boxes and Lines. Phil entered the financial services world after retiring from the NFL in 1989, later joining Academy Securities where he is now vice chairman. Academy Securities is a disabled veteran-owned and operated investment bank, and nearly half of its employees are...

“Retail investor” used to mean one thing: long-term and passive. Not anymore. In this episode of Boxes and Lines, Ronan and JR unpack how retail trading has grown into a wide spectrum: from traditional hands-off 401(k) investors to 24/7 app-driven traders navigating options, predictions markets, and beyond. Plus: JR goes full “concerned grandfather.” Hit play.  

What is the “best price” and who actually gets to see it? Ronan and JR are talking odd lots (trades smaller than 100 shares) and why they now make up the majority of transactions. Regulatory changes mean that odd lot quotes will be used to compute the NBBO. It’s a deceptively small topic with implications for market transparency and execution quality. Plus: Boston accents, unwanted socks, and Rona...

Ronan Ryan and John Ramsey are joined by Reid Noch, Vice President of U.S. Equity Market Structure at TD Securities, for a wide-ranging conversation on three of the most talked-about (and most misunderstood) topics right now. Reid walks through how prediction markets are evolving beyond sports betting, why tokenization is as much a regulatory story as a technology one, and how changes in settlemen...

ETF.com's Dave Nadig is back on Boxes and Lines for our annual check-in on what's going to actually matters in markets for the year ahead, even if we never quite get to a formal list of “predictions.” Instead, Ronan and JR talk with Dave about what the last year revealed: record ETF flows and launches, what feels like a wild-west phase of financial innovation, rising speculation, and the blurring...

In this very special holiday edition of Boxes and Lines, Ronan and JR once again hand over the mics to the people who know them best (and roast them best), their spouses. Back by popular demand, Kara Ryan and Nick Buzard join the show for a special holiday edition of Boxes and Lines' spouses interviews. This episode features Nick’s incredible recovery after quintuple bypass surgery, the Ryans’ big...

From the industry’s sprint toward extended hours to retail’s continued dominance to the ongoing debate around tokenization, Ronan and JR are breaking it all down. Stick around to the end for a beautiful "tribute" to their friendship this year.  

Ronan and JR sit down with David Gardner — co-founder of investor education juggernaut The Motley Fool, host of podcast Rule Breaker Investing, and author of a new book by the same title, Rule Breaker Investing: How to Pick the Best Stocks of the Future and Build Lasting Wealth. From getting booed on The View for making a dud stock pick (that later went 30x). to breaking the mold of buttoned-up Wa...

In this special episode of Boxes and Lines, Ronan and JR sit down with members of IEX’s 2025 summer intern class, mostly incoming seniors in engineering, marketing, finance, and cybersecurity, for a conversation that spans Gen Z in the workplace, what they’ve learned at IEX, and their hopes (and hot takes) on the future of work, tech, and life. Two intern panels, one insightful summer, and at leas...

On the latest episode of Boxes and Lines, Ronan and JR welcome back Mett Kinak, Head of Global Trading at T. Rowe Price, for some real talk about market fragmentation, private rooms, and more. Mett also dispels his biggest pet peeve market structure myths, shares his skepticism about tokenizing equities, and pitches two new financial holidays—we'll raise a Bloody Mary to that.  

Subdollar stocks —those priced under $1—now make up nearly half of all share volume in U.S. markets, while contributing a fraction of the notional value (the actual dollar amount being traded). In this episode of Boxes and Lines Lite, Ronan and JR get into why this trend deserves more attention than it’s getting. From wild one-day volume spikes in penny stocks to distorted exchange market share an...

We’re re-airing one of our most surprising and most popular episodes for you this week -- a deep dive into Aaron Burr from January 2023. This episode is guest-hosted by IEX’s Jayme Abrahamsen and features Andy Kaplan (former Greenlight Capital partner, now CEO of Freedom’s Edge Cider). In a previous episode, they broke down the mythology of Hamilton. This time, they turn the spotlight on his adver...

Tokenization. You’ve been hearing about it since 2017. So have we. In this short episode of Boxes and Lines, Ronan and JR unpack the hype around tokenizing stocks — what it actually means, what it changes, and what ends up left out of the conversation. They get into the post-trade plumbing, investor protections and regulatory realities. Hit play!  

IEX is often labeled a "3% market share" venue, but what does that number really reflect? In this Boxes and Lines Lite, Ronan and JR chat with IEX’s Matt Weinberg (Head of Business Development) and Sam Stevens (Head of Business Analytics) to unpack a cleaner way to think about institutional-accessible liquidity. They break down why total market share can be a misleading benchmark for routing, how...

In this special FILMED episode of Boxes and Lines (watch here !), Ronan and JR welcome John Palmer and Ivan Brown, who are leading IEX’s charge into the options market. They get into what makes options different from equities, explain the rise of 0DTE (zero-day-to-expiration) contracts, and talk about the unique risks market makers face in a quote-driven ecosystem. We share why now is the right ti...

Dennis Kelleher, co-founder and CEO of Better Markets, joins Boxes and Lines for a no-holds-barred conversation on the state of financial regulation. By the end, Ronan may or may not have entered a mild fugue state.

Barry Ritholtz, founder and CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and host of the hit Bloomberg podcast Masters in Business, returns to Boxes and Lines to talk about his new book, How Not to Invest. Rather than presenting a traditional “how-to” manual, the book emphasizes what investors should not do, covering bad ideas, bad numbers, and bad behaviors. He joins Ronan and JR to break down everything fr...

In Part 2 of our conversation with Diana B. Henriques, the Wizard of Lies author and veteran New York Times financial journalist takes us even deeper into the world of Bernie Madoff. She shares what it was like to sit across from him in prison, unraveling the psychology behind his massive Ponzi scheme and the ways he manipulated not just his victims but everyone around him. Diana’s book became the...

Bernie Madoff was a market structure pioneer, a former NASDAQ chairman, and one of the most trusted names on Wall Street—bona fides that allowed him to architect the largest known Ponzi scheme in history under the noses of regulators. In this first episode of our two-part look at Madoff, Ronan and JR sit down with New York Times journalist Diana Henriques, author of The Wizard of Lies, which also...

It’s Boxes and Lines Lite, where we break down the biggest market stories in just 10–15 minutes. This time, we’re tackling the DeepSeek disruption—the surprise AI breakthrough out of China that sent Nvidia’s stock plunging, erased $600 billion in market value, and wiped nearly $100 billion from tech billionaires’ fortunes. Ronan and JR break down why markets reacted so dramatically, how DeepSeek’s...

 Dave Nadig, veteran ETF expert and self-styled “financial futurist,” returns to Boxes and Lines to look into his crystal ball and let Ronan and JR know what he sees in the cards for finance in 2025. First things first: It’s going to be a deeply weird year, Nadig predicts (there’s a reason why a telepathy podcast recently topped the charts over Joe Rogan). Beyond that, Nadig predicts we are about...

In this special episode of Boxes and Lines, Ronan and JR are answering your questions. We’re airing listener voicemails and emails, taking on everything from the future of the SEC under new leadership to the feasibility of 24-hour trading. Along the way, we brainstorm replacements for Wall Street’s iconic bull, assemble the ultimate finance industry dinner guest list, and see right through a "myst...