David Barse was the CEO of Third Avenue Management when one of its credit funds melted down in late 2015. The collapse of the fund touched off a significant debate about market structure, and the appropriate way to invest in illiquid, distressed securities. On this week's episode, we talk to Barse about what he learned from the experience, and how he's investing today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Oct 01, 2018•36 min
What if there were a bank that could never experience a run? And furthermore, what if it paid higher interest rates on deposits than what you could get at other banks? That sounds pretty good, right? Well it might be possible. On this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we talk with Jamie McAndrews, the co-founder and CEO of The Narrow Bank. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 24, 2018•48 min
Sixty percent in equities/40 percent in bonds is a popular, general approach to structuring a diversified portfolio. In theory, when times are good, your stocks go up, and when times are bad, your bonds go up. But what if the correlation between bonds and stocks changes? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Farouk Jivraj, head of Investment Strategies Research at Barclays, about cross-asset correlations and what causes them to change over time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy i...
Sep 17, 2018•40 min
Companies have all kinds of discretion in how they recognize revenue and costs. Some of this is legit. Some of this is fraud. On this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Howard Schilit, an expert in forensic accounting and the author of “Financial Shenanigans: How To Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 10, 2018•35 min
There's been an intense debate about what Tesla CEO Elon Musk meant when he tweeted in early August that he was taking the company private and that funding was "secured.” Bloomberg Opinion writer Matt Levine discusses how securities regulators might view such a comment. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 04, 2018•31 min
Joe Weisenthal is a co-host of the Odd Lots podcast. He also once launched his own cryptocurrency called Stalwartbucks. On this week's episode, we speak with Guan Yang, who along with Weisenthal helped launch Stalwartbucks in the early weeks of 2014. We talk about how they did it, what they learned, and why, sadly, it ultimately failed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 27, 2018•25 min
Are you confused about the crisis in Turkey? Today's episode will get you cleared up. This week on Odd Lots, we spoke to Paul McNamara, an investment manager at GAM Investments, and a long-term veteran of the emerging markets world. He explained the mechanics of the Turkish currency plunge, and what aspects of the turmoil are unique or similar to other emerging markets crises that he's seen in his career. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Aug 20, 2018•30 min
Open any financial publication and you'll see ads for investment products: exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, and the like. Those ads can tell you a lot about what investors are currently thinking and feeling about the market. But did you ever wonder how Wall Street came to be advertising these prepackaged products? On this edition of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Eric Weiner, who leads ETF coverage at Bloomberg and also wrote a book on the history of Wall Street. We talk about the first...
Aug 13, 2018•24 min
Srinivas Thiruvadanthai is the Director of Research at the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, and one of the most interesting commentators on markets and the economy. He's also an economist who fits into the post-Keynesian school of thought. The post-Keynesians -- a group that has a growing following -- argue that the economy is not self-correcting, that central banks have limited influence on the economy or inflation, and that large government debts can be a stabilizing force. In our conversation,...
Aug 06, 2018•36 min
Here's some good news for investors: If you've ever made a disastrous trade, you're not alone. All of the greats have made horrible moves as well. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Michael Batnick, the director of research at Ritholtz Wealth Management, and the author of a new book 'Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments.' We talk about great errors from the likes of Warren Buffett, Bill Ackman, Jesse Livermore and many others. In addition to going through their ...
Jul 30, 2018•30 min
If you want to understand how the human body works, you can't just look at healthy humans. You need to examine the ill, so you can see how the body breaks down and where its weak spots are. And so if you want to understand how business works, it makes sense to look at financial fraud. After all, financial fraudsters work by getting to know a business really well, in order to take advantage of how it operates. That's the gist of our discussion this week with Dan Davies, the author of "Lying for M...
Jul 23, 2018•34 min
For years, it was pretty quiet in markets. Stocks kept making new highs and volatility drifted to fresh lows. That's changed in recent months and there's now plenty to keep investors busy, including fears of a trade war and signs that the economy be nearing the end of its cycle. On this week's episode of the podcast, we speak with Peter Borish, a veteran investor and trader (and former Odd Lots guest), who is currently chief strategist at the Quad Group. He talks about how he approaches trading ...
Jul 16, 2018•36 min
Thanks to the tax cuts, the U.S. deficit is expected to surge again. And of course that's brought greater attention to the government's semi-regular Treasury auctions. But the government borrowing money isn't like a household borrowing money, and analogies between the two can be misleading. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Brian Romanchuk, the author of BondEconomics.com and a long time financial industry veteran, about what's actually happening when the government taps the debt mark...
Jul 09, 2018•28 min
Everyone knows that online advertising pays for a massive chunk of the internet that people know and love, whether it's social networking sites, news, photo sharing apps, or anything else. But how do the ads get delivered to your desktop or phone? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Afsheen Bigdeli, an engineer who works on online ad platforms about how every time you see an ad it's the result of a virtually instantaneous online auction in which the seller of ad inventory (a publisher) ...
Jul 02, 2018•31 min
Earlier this year, markets were spooked by blow-ups in a number of volatility-linked products. But dealing with volatility is the foundation of risk management on Wall Street and there's a particular model that's become pervasive among big investors and banks -- so-called Value-at-Risk (VaR) models seek to gauge how much a portfolio might gain or lose based on historic price movements. On this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak to one of the original creators of VaR. Till Guldimann...
Jun 25, 2018•34 min
A pivotal moment in U.S. political history is when CNBC's Rick Santelli went on a gigantic rant against Obama's stimulus programs while on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. The rant is credited by some as having helped galvanize the Tea Party movement, which rapidly became highly influential within the Republican party. Standing next to Santelli was a floor trader, Eric Wilkinson, who joined along in the rant, and become a player in his own right in the story. On this week's episode, we t...
Jun 18, 2018•35 min
Longtime market analyst Ed Yardeni came up with the term "Bond Vigilantes" to describe the way bond market participants can punish governments who run economically irresponsible policies. When Yardeni used it in the 80s, it referred to US fiscal policy that was thought to be inflationary. Now the bond vigilantes are back, but this time they're in Italy. On this week's podcast, Yardeni explains the history of the term, what's going on now, and how interest rates can be used to model stock market ...
Jun 11, 2018•31 min
When you're eating a chocolate bar, there's a good chance you're not thinking about the complex commodity market that allows cocoa beans to make it into a tasty snack. But obviously cocoa trading is a huge business. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak to professor Kristy Leissle, the author of the book “Cocoa,” about how this commodity market really works. She explains to us where it's grown, how pricing's determined, and the role of the major confectionery buyers in this market. See omnys...
Jun 04, 2018•35 min
For years, big banks, hedge funds and other investment firms took part in an epic scavenger hunt in New York. Inspired by the 1980 movie, “Midnight Madness,” teams of quants and traders would stay out all night competing to figure out some of the world's hardest puzzles. This year, the event was held for the first time in London, where Odd Lots joined a team from Goldman Sachs to compete for the prestigious title. In this episode, find out what it's like to actually compete in the fiendishly dif...
May 28, 2018•33 min
The recent trade tensions between the Trump administration and China has shone a light on the country's ambitions to become a technology powerhouse, as one of the complaints is that China unfairly extracts intellectual property from multinationals entering that market. But what, specifically, is China's long-term plan? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Dan Wang, a technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics about the the Made In China 2025 initiative, which seeks to turn the country int...
May 21, 2018•29 min
When Bitcoin first began generating headlines, there were some who thought the cryptocurrency was a fraud and others who thought it was the next big thing. Greg King, CEO of Rex Shares LLC, was one of the latter. Like the Winklevoss twins, he set out to create an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would allow people to invest in Bitcoin in a new way. But many years later, the U.S. securities watchdog hasn't approved such plans. On this edition of the Odd Lots podcast, we use the Bitcoin example and...
May 14, 2018•30 min
It’s a big, expensive, global mystery. Why do women still make less money—a lot less—than men? In the US, the average woman makes 80 cents to every dollar a man makes. Launching May 9, the Pay Check is an in-depth investigation into what that 20 percent difference looks like. In this miniseries we'll show you how the gender pay gap plays out in real life. We'll hear from Lily Ledbetter, Mo’Nique, and a lot of other women who weren’t happy to be paid less. We'll find out what happens when a whole...
May 09, 2018•3 min
Everybody probably has some vague idea of what the paparazzi do. They ride around on motorcycles, hounding celebrities, and hopefully snapping photos of them in embarrassing situations. But how do the business and economics really work? How do the photographers actually get paid? Eddie van der Walt, a Bloomberg reporter who once was a paparazzo, joins us on this week’s Odd Lots to help answer those questions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
May 07, 2018•27 min
The Kentucky Derby is coming up in early May, and it's time to get excited. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we talk to Bloomberg editor David Papadopoulos, who in addition to his day job has been betting on horses for a long time. In our discussion, he talked about great gambling scores, where brilliant bettors and cheaters took down gigantic purses by finding ways to beat the odds. He also gave us his take on the challenges of betting on the Derby and other races. See omnystudio.com/listener f...
Apr 30, 2018•23 min
When it comes to millennials, the media has certain tropes that it likes to go back to. Millennials love avocados. Millennials aren't into homebuying. Millennials are always killing off this or that product or service. But what if the consumption lens is the totally wrong way to talk about this generation? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Malcolm Harris, the author of "Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials," about what he says is a more useful frame for underst...
Apr 23, 2018•33 min
We've been nominated for a Webby Award in the business podcast category, and we need the support of our listeners to help us win. Go online to https://www.webbyawards.com/ and vote now. And thanks for listening! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 16, 2018•1 min
By now, everyone's heard of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) where companies issue their own currency-like tokens. They boomed massively in 2017, alongside the whole cryptocurrency craze. But very few people really get what they are, and how they fit into the regulatory landscape. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Peter van Valkenburgh, the director of research at Coin Center, who explains why you have to go back to a 1946 case involving a Florida orange grower to understand how regula...
Apr 16, 2018•27 min
Recent threats to impose tariffs on Chinese goods, coupled with China's own retaliatory announcements have raised the prospects of a trade war between the world's two biggest economies. But what is a trade war, and what would be the economic ramifications if there were one? Brad Setser, the Steven A. Tananbaum senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins us on this week’s Odd Lots to help answer those questions. Brad has been writing about trade issues for...
Apr 09, 2018•39 min
A lot of people would probably agree that there's something wrong with much of the traditional advice in how to lose weight -- or at least how it's implemented. The economist Miles Kimball has lost weight using a different approach. He's increased his fat intake and gone for long stretches of time without eating anything at all. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, Kimball, a prolific blogger and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, explains what got him interested in fasting, obesity re...
Apr 02, 2018•36 min
Remember LIBOR? The London Interbank Offered Rate measures the cost of money when banks borrow from each other. It famously blew out during the financial crisis, but for a long time since then it's been dormant. Only lately it's started to creep higher again. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we talk to Scott Peng, the founder, CEO and CIO of Advocate Capital Management, who warned in early 2008 that there was something fishy about the way the measure was being priced. In the post-crisis period, ...
Mar 26, 2018•30 min
