Odd Lots

We know that the top-tier AI labs are spending unbelievable amounts of money on talent. But what are these researchers actually working on? And how do we know that they're making progress? And furthermore, how can we even measure that progress? On this episode, we speak with Jack Morris, an AI researcher and Ph. D. candidate at Cornell University, who is also a part-time researcher at Meta. We tal...

There are two huge winning trades that people are looking at day after day. Gold keeps going up and US tech stocks keep going up. But what is driving this intense flow? How long can these consensus trades last? On this episode, we speak with Ozan Tarman, the Vice Chair of Global Macro at Deutsche Bank. As part of his role at the bank, Ozan talks non-stop with hedge funders, sovereign wealth fund m...

In recent years, retail trading of stocks has absolutely exploded. This is happening despite the fact that investors are subject to a constant stream of propaganda that individuals can't beat the market, and that the proper way to invest is through low-cost index funds that you don't pay regular attention to. More than anyone else, one man has been banging the drum (literally) for years that indiv...

When President Trump announced the tariffs on Liberation Day, it seemed to truly mark the end of the old world trading system. But of course it had been dying for a long time. The first Trump administration erected aggressive trading barriers against China. Then Biden expanded them further. And there were signs of its demise even under Obama. So what was the global trading system? What will come a...

There is a widespread view that China is a superpower of rising status, and that a new global order is emerging with the country as an important pole in it. You see this with the growing BRICS organization. You also see this with the leaders who went to Beijing recently for the country's military parade. And of course, this comes at a time when the US is erecting trade barriers with everyone, incl...

If you look at prospectuses and earnings documents for almost any company, you're going to see a Delaware address. For more than a century, the state has been the place to go to if you're setting up a business. And in fact, Delaware has catered to these corporate clients, setting up an efficient chancery court to settle corporate disputes and producing a huge backlog of case law to act as reliable...

Almost everything we buy nowadays has been in a box at some point. Goods are shipped in boxes. Products ordered online arrive at our doorstep in boxes. Boxes are so ubiquitous that some strategists use them as an unconventional macroeconomic indicator to gauge retail spending. Now, shipments of boxes are falling dramatically. At the same time, prices for boxes have actually been going up . So, wha...

Everyone wants to buy the hedge that will save their portfolio in a time of collapse. But this is easier said than done. You need to understand the specific risks facing your portfolio. You also need to get the disaster state right. Plus, insurance of any sort is costly. This means tail risk hedging is far from a trivial exercise. On this episode, we talk to someone who's been working on the probl...

In this live episode, recorded at the Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach, California, we speak with Rob Kaplan, the former president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and the current vice chairman of Goldman Sachs. We discuss his views on the rate path, and why he does not see the Fed cutting by 50 bps at the next meeting. We also discuss the general macroeconomic environment, the US vs. C...

The recent parade in Beijing once again raised questions about the relative strengths of the US and Chinese militaries. Meanwhile, because of recent global conflicts (including the clash between Indian and Pakistan earlier this year), we've gotten fresh data on how certain hardware actually holds up on the battlefield or in the skies. Separately, China is known to be working on a new 6th generatio...

One day it's so over. The next day we're so back. This is what it feels like gauging the AI boom right now. Everyone's looking for signs of some kind of slowdown and that investments aren't going pan out, but mostly, the dollar signs just keep piling up. And the AI winners like Nvidia, OpenAI, and Anthropic just keep seeing their market valuations rise. In the meantime, other AI players are seeing...

For this week’s episode of Bloomberg’s  Everybody’s Business , Joe Wiesenthal joins Max Chafkin and Stacey Vanek Smith to fact check President Trump’s recent claim that the “stock market needs the tariffs, they want the tariffs." Is it actually possible to tell how markets feel about tariffs? Do the markets even know themselves? The trio dives deep. Also on this...

We've been in a strange labor market for a while now. The unemployment rate is still nice and low at 4.2%. But the pace of job creation has been slowing markedly. And furthermore, not only has the pace of job creation been slowing, it seems almost every monthly Non-Farm Payrolls number ends up getting revised lower. Of course, this comes at a time of some big transitions in the workforce — w...

Buy Now Pay Later is everywhere nowadays. Companies like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna have brought installment payments into everyday life, while big banks and tech firms also now racing into the space. With the market growing so rapidly, there are obvious concerns over whether BNPL is adding a new layer of 'hidden leverage' to the economy, giving online shoppers an alternative to more traditional...

In the past couple of years, the world has fully awoken to the incredible economic and technological growth exhibited by China. But what lessons are there for America? Are there even lessons for America? Dan Wang, research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover History Lab, has probably been one of the foremost commentators and observers on China's rise, having taken seriously their efforts to pus...

Gamblers on prediction sites like Polymarket and Kalshi are already trying to cash in on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement — betting on everything from their wedding timeline to her next single. On today’s Big Take podcast, host Sarah Holder sits down with Bloomberg personal finance reporter Francesca Maglione and wealth reporter Annie Massa to dig into what a high-profi...

The post-Covid inflation will prove to be a treasure trove for academic economists, as they study what drives inflation, and the power that central banks have to contain it once it gets going. At this year's Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, UC Berkeley professor Emi Nakamura presented a new paper — co-authored with her Berkeley colleagues Jón Steinsson and Venance Riblier — titl...

These days, everyone is talking about high interest rates across the rich, developed world, while warning of eventual fiscal disaster. But we may have gotten an early glimpse of this anxiety in October 2022, when then-UK Prime Minister Liz Truss unveiled her mini-budget that spooked the gilt market. Well today, rates at the long end of the British yield curve are even higher. So what's going on? W...

Criticism and threats to Federal Reserve independence have been building for some time in this administration. But it was taken to a new height on August 25, when Trump posted that he intended to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee. According to our guest, Columbia Law Professor Lev Menand, this is a big deal that has created an immediate crisis. The Trump administration's argument is t...

The annual Jackson Hole symposium is, formally speaking, an academic conference. Economists and central bankers gather to discuss the most important, cutting edge ideas in monetary policy. But there was certainly a different feel this year because of the relentless attacks on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell coming from President Trump. The whole premise of central bank independence is becoming a live q...

According to Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Tom Barkin, much of the time central banking is straightforward. Sometimes it's clear that rate cuts are needed. Sometimes it's clear that rate hikes are needed. Other times everything is going great, and central bankers don't have much to worry about. Right now though, things are not straightforward. There are signs of labor market softening. B...

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee is still more concerned about the inflation side of the Fed's mandate than he is about the employment side. This is noteworthy because in general markets are expecting rate cuts to come soon, and also Chairman Jerome Powell, speaking in Jackson Hole, put more weight on risks to the labor market. In this episode recorded at the conference, Goolsbee explains why...

We're still at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, where we just heard Fed Chair Jerome Powell's big speech. The speech -- which opened the door to a September rate cut -- proved to be a dovish surprise to the market and stocks are now soaring because of it. But why did Powell decide to focus on what he sees as "downside" risks to the labor market as o...

It's Jackson Hole time again, when the most prominent minds in monetary policy meet in an idyllic Wyoming setting for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual symposium on monetary policy. For markets, the main event tends to be the speech from the Fed Chairman. But beyond that, there's always a theme that central bankers and academics are tasked to discuss. So to raise the curtain for thi...

You always hear about startup exits. Big acquisitions. Big IPOs. But of course this isn’t the fate for most new ventures. Many of them die outright, without any kind of “exit” at all for shareholders. So how do you wind down a company, and sell off the scraps? How do you actually pull the plug? David Johnson of Resolution Financial Advisors specializes in exactly that. Because th...