Odd Lots

What changed between 2019 and 2025? Why are interest rates so much higher? Why does it seem virtually unfathomable that the Fed will return to ZIRP anytime soon? Why do investors expect this rate cut cycle to be so shallow? The answer, theoretically, is that the neutral rate of interest has gone u...

Money has been flowing into the AI space, with billions pouring into GPU clusters, data centers, gas turbines, and the infrastructure needed to train and deploy bigger and bigger models. So what comes next? On this episode, we speak with James van Geelen, founder of Citrini Research. We talk to hi...

We're used to talking about the Federal Reserve changing "benchmark interest rates." But the mechanics of how the central bank actually tightens or loosens policy are a lot more nuanced. For years now, the Fed's been doing this through the federal funds market — where US banks lend and borrow their excess reserves. But that could be changing. Last week, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan argued that the fed funds target is outd...

CME Group is one of the oldest exchanges around, tracing it's history all the way back to the late 1800s, when it specialized in agricultural commodities. It's best known for things like futures and interest rate swaps that tend to be favored by professional traders. But as retail trading becomes big business, the CME is expanding its footprint in the space, including a recently-announced partnership with sports-betting platform Fa...

For over 20 years, people have been talking about prediction markets or event markets are the next big thing. But mostly, with some niche exceptions, they haven't taken off, in part due to regulatory constraints. But now they seem to be booming, and the regulatory environment has gotten much more friendly. On this live episode recorded in Chicago, we speak with Tarek Mansour, the co-founder and CEO of Kalshi, one of the prediction ...

Don Wilson has built a career diving into some of trading’s thorniest problems, including figuring out ways to trade new and niche markets. Now, the founder and CEO of DRW has his sights set on the GPUs powering AI, which he thinks could end up being a bigger market than crude oil. In this episode, which was recorded live onstage at our show in Chicago, we talk about how such a market would wo...

Kindbody, one of the largest fertility companies in the US, sought to disrupt egg freezing and IVF by combining spa vibes with Silicon Valley efficiency. The startup raised millions, opened dozens of clinics, and became a billion-dollar unicorn. But its ambition came with consequences. In IVF Disrupted: The Kindbody Story, reporter Jackie Davalos takes listeners beyond Kindbody’s millennial-friendly waiting rooms and into the...

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 talk about what he does, and why breakt...

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 man...

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 a...

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 after it? What are the benefits and ...

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, includ...

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, D...

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

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 problem...

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. China AI race, and why he sees globa...

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 generation fighter for which some video has ...

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 weird outcomes. Some promising sta...

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.