Odd Lots

We live in a world of generally expensive stock markets and bank equities trading at 30-year lows. So says John Hempton, co-founder of hedge fund Bronte Capital and a former bank analyst, who also calls it "one of the great puzzles of the world." On this episode, we take a special trip to Australia to speak with Hempton about banks and how they fit into the way he evaluates good businesses and promising stocks. He notes that bank profit margins have been declining in places with both positive and negative rates. We also speak about how he picks stocks in a market currently trading at eye-watering valuations, why you shouldn't necessarily seek 'value,' and what investors can learn from the early 2000s tech bubble.

The amount of negative-yielding debt keeps climbing and now includes bonds issued by emerging market countries and some junk-rated companies. On this week's episode, we talk to Viktor Shvets, Macquarie's Head of Asia Strategy, about why interest rates keep getting lower and why that's a problem for the global economy and financial system. He argues that undermining the 'time value' of money–or the principle that money available now is worth more than money in the future because you can use it to earn additional money–won't lead to economic growth. In fact, he says, negative rates are going to end up leading to a rethink of modern capitalism and political society once people realize they have big consequences. He's also one of the few sell-side analysts who takes Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) pretty seriously.

It's no secret that a lot of the trade tensions between the U.S. and China have centered on technology, and China has accused the U.S. of trying to stymie its economic development by suppressing its technological advancement. This week's Odd Lots guest argues that, while there are few historical precedents for this sort of technological suppression, there are a lot of them in science fiction. Laban Yu, head of Hong Kong and China research at Jefferies, walks us through the surprising overlap between sci-fi and the trade war.

Last month, Facebook announced it was launching its own cryptocurrency called Libra. Facebook says Libra is going to have all sorts of benefits, including helping people without traditional bank accounts and acting as an alternative form of money in countries that don't have stable currencies. At the same time, Facebook's Libra has already been criticized for potentially allowing people to skirt existing government rules. On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Jill Carlson, co-founder of the Open Money Initiative, about the actual use cases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. She's been studying exactly how people have been using cryptocurrency in one of the world's most unstable monetary systems: Venezuela. 

Of all the “unicorn” startups in recent years, perhaps none induces more skepticism than WeWork. Thanks to its gigantic losses and unusual business practices, many view it as the ultimate emblem of Silicon Valley irrationality. But there are some bulls who say the company is misunderstood! On this week’s episode, we speak with Sandy Kory, a managing director at Horizon Partners, about why he’s bullish on WeWork and how it’s misunderstood by so many people.

There's always bears out there predicting that the stock market will tank. But many of them aren't worth listening to because they're always saying the same thing, regardless of the market environment. What's interesting, though, is when a longtime bull changes his or her mind. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Bloomberg's very own macro strategist Mark Cudmore. He's been consistently bullish and optimistic about the market and the economy since 2011. But, in the last several weeks, he's flipped his view and is now warning about a recession and a market tumble. On this episode, he explains his reasoning.

Bitcoin has been around for roughly a decade now, but people have been working on the dream of an anonymous, digital currency for a lot longer than that. On this week's Odd Lots, we speak with NYU professor Finn Brunton, who is the author of the new book "Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency." Brunton talked to us Bitcoin's pre-history, and about how and why there was a major crossover between digital currency believers and people who want to freeze their bodies in order to live forever.

The vast majority of global trade is still denominated in U.S. dollars, making cross-border flows about currencies as much as manufactured goods. On this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Hyun Song Shin, economic adviser and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements. He talks about why a weaker dollar amounts to looser financial conditions for much of the world. He also gives his outlook on the global economy and the state of credit markets. 

There's been a series of historic marches in Hong Kong, with millions of people taking to the streets to protest against an extradition bill that they think will give China more power over the city. On this episode of Odd Lots, we talk to David Webb, one of Hong Kong's most unusual and well-known investors. Webb has amassed a fortune by investing in local stocks but he also advocates for change in Hong Kong's volatile market, where big swings and lackluster corporate governance are often the norm. Here, he talks about how he sees the future of Asia's biggest financial center in the wake of the protests. He also gives his thoughts on U.S.-China relations.

Famous, unique pieces of art are inherently illiquid. They don't sell very often, and pricing is inherently difficult to estimate. Nonetheless, it's a huge business, and investors have been attempting for a long time to turn art into a proper asset class. On this week's podcast, we speak to Margaret Carrigan, an editor at The Art Newspaper, about how investors are attempting to financialize the art world via the use of guaranteed prices at auction.

South Korean boy band BTS is rarely connected to economics, but as the biggest success to come out of K-Pop, it arguably should be. On this week's episode of Odd Lots, we speak to Euny Hong, the author of 'The Birth of Korean Cool,' about how South Korea made cultural exports a key plank in its economic development strategy. 

Earlier this month, President Trump escalated the trade tensions against China by limiting exports of U.S. technology to Huawei. But what is Huawei, and why is this such a big deal? On this week's episode, we speak to Dan Wang, a technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, about the importance of Huawei to the Chinese tech industry, the specifics of what Trump just did, and the far-reaching fallout that we could see from this new phase of the trade war.

“What Goes Up” is a new show from Bloomberg that tracks the main themes influencing global markets. Hosts Sarah Ponczek and Mike Regan speak with guests about the wildest movements in markets and what they mean for your investments. The show is out now, and can be found on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Bitcoin has been around for about ten years. But the dream of a decentralized, anonymous digital currency has been around for decades. On this week's podcast, we speak with one of the original godfathers of the space, David Chaum, an American cryptographer, who first wrote about digital cash in the early 80s. Chaum's original vision wasn't exactly the same as what we know as cryptocurrencies today, but many of the ideas were the same, and Chaum's work was cited by many of the early crypto believers. On this week's podcast, we talk to him about the history of his work, cryptocurrency, and where he sees it going now.

Marty Markowitz had his share of problems. His parents had recently died. He had troubles at work. A failing relationship. He needed someone to help him through this rough patch in his life. So he decided to get some professional help from a psychiatrist. What he did not count on, was what happened in his life over the next twenty-nine years. This is a story about power, control, and turning to the wrong person for help.  Listen now at bloomberg.com/shrinknextdoor

If you lived in NYC a few decades ago, you probably have heard of Crazy Eddie, an electronics retailer that was famous for its outlandish ads on TV. What most people didn't know until after it went public, is that the company was built on financial fraud. In this week's episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with its former CFO Sam Antar about the company's shenanigans, and how it all came undone. 

When talking government bond defaults, plenty of people think of Argentina and Greece. But the biggest sovereign debt default of all time was arguably Russia’s repudiation of debt in 1918, after the Bolshevik revolution. In this episode, we speak to Hassan Malik, an emerging markets analyst and author of ‘Bankers and Bolsheviks,’ about how the Russian debt bubble developed and then crashed. He explains why Western investors thought Russian debt was a safe bet right up until the eve of the Soviet debt repudiation.

These days about one in three bites of food you eat wouldn’t be possible without commercial bee pollination. And the economic value of insect pollination worldwide is estimated to be about $217 billion. But as important as bees have become for farming, there’s also increasing signs that bees are in trouble. In the decade-plus since the first cases of Colony Collapse Disorder were reported, bees are still dying in record numbers, and important questions remain unanswered. On this new miniseries, host Adam Allington and environment reporters David Schultz and Tiffany Stecker travel to all corners of the honeybee ecosystem from Washington, D.C., to the California almond fields, and orchards of the upper Midwest to find answers to these questions.

Whenever poker is depicted on a TV show or in a movie there's a lot of emphasis placed on the art and science of reading the physical cues that players give off accidentally when attempting to conceal the motivations behind their bets. Poker pros call these "tells." Even though tells are overrated as a source of significant alpha at a poker table (and their significance is diminished even more when playing online) they can still be important. On this week's podcast, we speak to Zachary Elwood, a former pro poker player who has authored multiple books on tells and how to read them.

Recently, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance delisted a Bitcoin offshoot, causing its price to fall. Crypto’s market structure is still in its early days, and the move raises questions around decentralization and the power of exchanges. Alex Gordon-Brander has been thinking a lot about what crypto’s market structure will look like as his company, Omega One, is building a crypto dark pool. He joins this week’s Odd Lots podcast to discuss crypto market structure, where it’s headed and how Omega One will choose which coins to list.