Odd Lots

Labor markets are considered to be "tight" right now, but wage growth continues to lag inflation. For decades, in fact, we've seen a steady decline in worker bargaining power, or labor's share of total income. So what would it take to turn this around? How can workers regain leverage? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Anna Stansbury, an MIT economist who focuses on labor and macroecono...

When people think about the market mania we recently experienced, the most glaring thing that comes to mind is the meme stocks. In early 2021, the huge moves in names like AMC and GameStop exemplified this new Robinhood, r/WSB, crypto world. But there were activities much more egregious than some retail traders buying odd lots on Robinhood. Serious, professional investors and traders lost huge sum...

With energy prices booming, heatwaves ravaging Europe, and Russia going to war against Ukraine, there's an increased focus on the so-called energy transition. Interest in decarbonization is surging. But there's still a lot of ambiguity about what that might look like. As we've learned lately, with booming demand for coal, and many premature obituaries having been written for oil, energy sources do...

In theory, a big shift towards renewable sources of energy (like wind and solar and electric vehicles) mean less money and power for Russia, and the OPEC nations. But new forms of energy also require resource extraction. And we've already seen growing tension in places that have abundant copper and lithium deposits. So what are the new politics of extraction? On this episode of the podcast we spea...

The Federal Reserve recently began shrinking its massive balance sheet, unwinding trillions of dollars worth of bond purchases that it started making during the depths effort to offset the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It's not the first time that the Fed has undertaken 'quantitative tightening,' as the process is called. But this time around is different. The central bank is withdrawing stimu...

For years, venture capital firms have been pouring money into start-ups, trying to get a piece of the next Amazon or Apple. Valuations for new tech companies soared, and many of them took to crypto to explore new forms of raising money. That included issuing tokens to venture capital funds who sometimes then flipped them to retail investors. Now, Silicon Valley seems to be crashing back down to Ea...

Every time a crisis hits, you get a new round of people warning about the end of US dollar dominance. The Covid crisis and its aftermath is no exception. It may be that the world will change over the long run in some way that does help to dislodge the greenback. But in the meantime, concerns about a looming recession mean that the dollar is booming against other currencies. It's at a 20-year high...

This week, Twitter sued Elon Musk, attempting to force him to make good on his 44 billion buyout offer for the company. This story has already been surreal in many ways, and now we might get an actual trial out of it in a Delaware court. So what should we expect, in terms of the process and the law? On this episode we speak with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine, who has been chronicling the...

If you've ever interacted with hardcore Bitcoin maximalists you might find some of them, at least, to be... abrasive. And it's not just no-coiners who are the target of their scorn. The real enemies are ex-maxis, who are viewed as apostates. Nic Carter, a co-founder and GP at the VC firm Castle Island Ventures, has been a longtime Bitcoiner. He has been in the sapce for a long time. He is a prolif...

The market for US Treasuries is arguably one of the most important and liquid markets in the world. But it's been experiencing a number of hiccups in recent years, such as the sudden selloff of March 2020. And in more recent weeks, yields on US government debt have also spiked as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. Some of that makes sense as the central bank makes big changes to its foreca...

The first real explosive Internet IPO was a company called TheGlobe.com. It was kind of a proto-social networking/message board site, and on the day it went public in 1998, its shares soared 606%. Its co-founders were briefly worth around $100 million each. They become overnight celebrities, known for their extravagant lifestyles and even their fashion choices. Of course, it all came to an end whe...

Inflation was running hot even before Russia invaded Ukraine, but disruption in Europe's bread basket certainly hasn't helped matters and there are now plenty of warnings that a global food shortage could be looming. Even if the normal cycle of sowing crops and harvesting them can keep going uninterrupted in Ukraine, wheat exports would still need to get out of the country. With Russia currently b...

'Markets can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent' is a classic maxim for investors, but it holds true for journalists too. In this episode, we speak with the Financial Times's Dan McCrum and Paul Murphy (Tracy's old boss) about their multi-year effort to expose fraud at Wirecard, a German payments giant that went spectacularly belly-up after billions of dollars were found to have...

The situation in energy right now seems bleak. But while everyone is focused on the high price of gasoline, or the frailty of the electrical grid, advances are still being made to decarbonize, and make our energy system more robust. It's jut not getting as much attention right now. But what can the public sector do to accelerate this process? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Jigar Sha...

There are a lot of challenges facing emerging markets right now. For a start, the dollar has been pretty strong, heaping pressure on governments that have borrowed in a foreign currency. Meanwhile, energy and food prices are soaring. These are two things that emerging markets often have to import, or subsidize for their citizens. Put it altogether and you have a toxic mix facing developing nations...

There's a fairly linear relationship between what's going on in the stock market and what's going on in the world of venture capital and private tech investing. When tech stocks plunge and the IPO window closes, then that hits valuations -- everything from late stage companies to those earlier in their trajectory. But there's more than just a declining stock market that's bedeviling the VC world r...

The price of oil is the central threat to the economy right now. Surging gasoline costs crimp consumer budgets. Surging diesel costs make everything more expensive. And of course, we know there are all kinds of structural impediments to increasing supply. But the stakes are huge, particularly since the Federal Reserve has signaled its willingness to throw the economy into a recession, if that's wh...

Oil prices are sky high. And there's plenty of oil in the ground in North America. And so far the supply response has been disappointing. Frustration is boiling over among drivers and politicians, and it's made life more complicated for the complicated. So what's the hold up? On this episode, we speak to longtime energy investor and industry participant Peter Tertzakian about the reality on the gr...

Legendary short seller Jim Chanos says that despite the plunge in stocks, there are numerous swathes of the equity market with plenty of downside risk. On this episode, the Chanos & Co. fund manager, argues that the market overall has simply not internalized what sustained higher rates will mean to business models and valuations across a variety of sectors, including real estate, utilities and...

Housing in the US is a constant source of frustration. On the way up, prospective homebuyers worry that they're missing out on their chance to jump on the housing ladder. On the way down, homeowners worry about losing their equity and their nest egg. So is there a better way? Is there a way to make housing more equitable, and to separate the investment component from the shelter component? On this...

Most people think of Foxconn as the company that assembles iPhones. But it's a lot more than that. In fact the company really got started by manufacturing all of the tiny components and connectors for the PC industry around the world, long before the iPhone ever existed. Now it wants to go back to its roots, but instead of making parts for PCs, it wants to make all the key components for electric...

There are numerous macro factors driving elevated inflation. But in some categories, there also seems to be a lot of bad luck. When it comes to the US wheat market, the weather has been awful. After a long drought, farmers have been faced with an extraordinary amount of rain. As such, the spring planting season has been one of the worst on record. Of course, this comes amid overall bad conditions,...

The collapse of the Terra/Luna experiment has brought fresh attention to stablecoins, and the different flavors they come in. Some are fully backed with standard financial assets. Others are backed by crypto. Others aren't really backed at all. But why the interest in stablecoins to begin with? Why so much enthusiasm and investment for cryptocurrencies that aren't even designed to go up? On this e...

These days, oil gets all the attention. Consumers feel and see the pinch directly every time they fill up their gas tank. But the big story in the next decade could be copper. It's not easy to ramp up copper production, due to the upfront cost and lead time in getting new mines online, and demand is expected to soar in part due to green initiatives. On this episode we speak with Goldman Sachs meta...

The world of trucking is extraordinarily complex. There are an untold number of players that need to ship goods around the country. And there are tens of thousands of carriers, large and small, who own the trucks that move the goods. Standing in the middle are freight brokerages, whose job is to find the right company to move the right goods. But what does it take to win in this space? What is the...