The Wall Street Skinny

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss Season 3, Episode 4: "White Mischief", one of the strongest (and darkest) episodes of the series thus far.   What starts as a Christmas episode turns into a brutal examination of luck, power, and the lies we tell ourselves and others. At the end of the day, this episode forces the question: is all trading gambling? If not, what's the difference?  At the...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we sit down with Liz Myers, Global Chair of Investment Banking and Capital Markets at J.P. Morgan for an Equity Capital Markets deep dive. We get into IPOs vs follow-ons, primary vs secondary proceeds (and why sponsor-backed IPOs often use proceeds differently), convertibles and the reality of price discovery. Liz breaks down the modern IPO process — from test-the-...

Send us Fan Mail 0-21:30: PSKY / WBD Deal breakdown21:30-51:08 The Fed Breakdown51:08-56:27: Donor Approved Funds for CharityIn this episode, Kristen and Jen continue to unpack Warner Brothers Discover bidding war from what the media is constantly getting wrong including missing the non apples to apples bids from PSKY and NFLX as well as why Paramount’s bid looks nothign like traditional M&A and i...

Send us Fan Mail Join Morgan Stanley alums Jen and Kristen as we decode the finance behind Industry Season 3, Episode 3, "It" which takes place at the COP conference in Switzerland. We break down the aftermath of the IPO and why pressuring a research analyst for a buy rating isn't just frowned upon—it’s illegal. We also analyze the mechanics of Petra and Harper’s attempt to launch their non new ES...

Send us Fan Mail Sarah Kapnick literally trained under John Nash at Princeton, went from structuring catastrophe bonds at Goldman during Hurricane Katrina, to serving as Chief Scientist at NOAA, and is now Global Head of Climate Advisory at JPMorgan. She’s part mathematician, part climate scientist, part Wall Street insider – and the godmother of The Wall Street Skinny, the person who first convin...

Send us Fan Mail This week Kristen and Jen break down the blockbuster Netflix–Warner Bros. deal. Netflix has agreed to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming assets — HBO, Max, Warner Bros. Studios, and its iconic content library — for $27.75 per share in a cash and stock deal. But before the deal closes, Warner Bros. will spin off its cable networks (CNN, TBS, Discovery Channel, an...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Skinny on Wall Street, Kristen and Jen unpack the story stirring up markets: Michael Burry’s latest warning that Big Tech is overstating earnings by extending the “useful life” assumptions on their GPUs. The conversation becomes a real-time teach-in on depreciation, useful life estimates, GAAP vs. tax depreciation, and how a small shift in an accounting esti...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we're talking about AI, the Fed, crypto, and housing --- and how those stories all suddenly collided this week. Nvidia’s huge earnings beat briefly sent markets higher, but the rally fizzled fast as investors grew more anxious about a potential AI bubble. We walk through why valuations increasingly assume massive job displacement and unprecedented productivity gai...

Send us Fan Mail We’re almost 200 episodes in, and we’ve been waiting for the perfect guest to come on to explain distressed debt investing... the wait is over. In this episode, we’re joined by Michael Gatto, who quite literally wrote the book on credit with The Credit Investor’s Handbook, and serves as the head of private side investing (private markets) at Silver Point, a $41 billion credit asse...

Send us Fan Mail We are thrilled to present a SPECIAL EDITION of The Wall Street Skinny. This episode, recorded live at Carlyle’s NYC offices, is a candid interview with one of our most impressive (yet shockingly down-to-earth) guests to-date: Shane Clifford, Carlyle’s Head of Global Wealth.   If you’re wondering how “Global Wealth” fits into one of the world’s most prestigious private equity mega...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s episode, we get into the Fed’s 25 basis point rate cut, Powell’s chaotic press conference before diving into Meta’s creative data center financing which is a lesson on project financing and lease accounting, and finally the growing blur between public and private credit.  The Fed’s October meeting delivered the expected 25 bps cut but Powell’s tone afterward left ma...

Send us Fan Mail This week, we’re joined by Paul Dodd, Senior Operating Partner and Head of Go-to-Market Operations at Sixth Street, one of the most respected private credit and private equity firms in the world. This episode is Part 2 of our Business Operations 101 series, and we’re digging into how firms like Sixth Street actually create value inside the companies they invest in. Paul specialize...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we sit down with Don Kieffer, senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of There’s Gotta Be a Better Way, to talk about what actually makes companies run well. Don has spent decades helping organizations, from Harley-Davidson factory floors to biotech labs, design better systems that unlock real performance. We break down the five-principle f...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The Wall Street Skinny, we kick off discussing gold ripping to record highs and unpack why that’s happening in a still-high-rate world: sticky inflation keeping real yields muted, central-bank buying, safe-haven demand, and a dash of retail frenzy. We also poke holes in the “25/25/25/25” portfolio meme (equities/bonds/cash/gold) and talk through why allocation can’t b...

Send us Fan Mail What does it really mean to be a "quant investor"? How do quantitative strategies fit into a modern portfolio? And what does it take to break into a quant investing career path? In this episode, we sat down with Stacie Mintz, Head of Quantitative Equity at PGIM (one of the world's largest asset managers, with $1.4tr in AUM). Stacie's team oversees $60bn in quantitative equity stra...

Send us Fan Mail Two days into a government shutdown, we break down what it actually means for markets when key data go dark—like today’s missing non-farm payrolls—and how that uncertainty can ricochet through trading desks, air travel, the SEC/IPO pipeline, and year-end seasonals. We walk through the historical playbook (rates, dollar, risk) and how we’re thinking about positioning when the Fed i...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The Skinny on Wall Street, Kristin and Jen tackle three headlines where markets and policy collide. First up: Trump’s call to shift public companies from quarterly to semi-annual earnings reporting. We lay out the real trade-offs—less bureaucracy and “short-termism” pressure for management vs. reduced transparency, potential for more volatility, and what this could me...

Send us Fan Mail The day after the FOMC’s first rate cut of 2025, we sat down with Matt Hornbach, Global Head of Macro Strategy at Morgan Stanley, to unpack what the decision really meant, and what the markets maybe got wrong on first read. Matt talks about the shifting dissenters, how updates to the Summary of Economic Projections present a more complicated picture for the future path of rate cut...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The Wall Street Skinny, we sat down with Gene Tannuzzo, Global Head of Fixed Income at Columbia Threadneedle, right as the Federal Reserve’s latest rate decision hit the wires. We walk through the live market reaction to the Fed’s 25 basis point cut, the dissenting voices on the FOMC, and what this move signals about the central bank’s shifting priorities. For those c...

Send us Fan Mail Kristen and Jen dive into the real-life Succession drama unfolding inside the Murdoch family, breaking down the legal battle over the Fox and News Corp trust that controls the family’s Class B super-voting shares. They explain how Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch secured a deal to buy out their siblings at a discount, why dual-class share structures matter for corporate control, and how...

Send us Fan Mail Alex Rodriguez is not only one of the greatest players in Major League Baseball history, 22 seasons, 14 All-Star selections, and three American League MVP award, but also the founder and CEO of A-Rod Corp. Through A-Rod Corp, he has built a diversified platform across three pillars: sports, real estate, and venture capital. His portfolio spans ownership of the Minnesota Timberwolv...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s episode of The Wall Street Skinny, Kristen and Jen return to one of their favorite formats: dissecting the finance lessons hidden inside pop culture. This time, they take on Moneyball, a Michael Lewis classic that at first glance looks like a baseball story, but in reality is a masterclass in statistics, valuation, and market inefficiencies. Far more than just a spo...

Send us Fan Mail In this emergency episode of The Skinny on Wall Street, Kristen and Jen dive into the breaking news that President Trump has moved to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over accusations of mortgage fraud. Using this moment as a springboard, they break down the fundamentals of how the Fed works, why its independence is so important, and how politics intersects with monetary po...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Wall Street Skinny, Jen unpacks an overlooked risk brewing beneath the surface of financial markets. Why did Jerome Powell, head of the Fed, deliver such a surprisingly “dovish” speech at Jackson Hole? Jen suggests it may be because he sees this liquidity problem coming.  Looking ahead, Kristen and Jen walk listeners through what to watch: not just whether t...

Send us Fan Mail This week on The Skinny on Wall Street, Kristen and Jen dive into the resurgence of SPACs and yes, Chamath Palihapitiya, the once-dubbed “SPAC King,” is back with a brand-new deal. We unpack what a SPAC really is, why they exploded in 2020, changes in the new structures and more. From warrants and dilution to sponsor “promotes” and fee double-dips, we break down the mechanics in p...