This episode is for the birds — and one bird in particular. Flaco, an Eurasian eagle-owl, escaped from the Central Park Zoo last year and went on to become a local celebrity, delighting New Yorkers with his feathered adventures across Manhattan. Late last month, however, Flaco died after an apparent collision with a building. Obviously, Flaco's death is a sad event for many reasons, but it got us thinking about the role of birds in the wider world. Not only are they an important part of the...

The Federal Reserve has a goal of getting inflation down to 2%. But of course, there are a lot of different ways of measuring inflation. Many people know about the Consumer Price Index, and the various ways it can be sliced and diced. The Fed, however, focuses on a different index — Personal Consumption Expenditure — which differs from the CPI in a number of ways, both in terms of category weightings and methodological approaches. So why are there different measures of inflation? Why does the...

 The hedge fund industry has gone through multiple evolutions. Investing styles go in and out of fashion as market conditions change. Strategies that work become crowded with investors, which can mean they stop working as well. The hottest thing these days are so-called multi-strategy funds or "pod shops" that employ multiple distinct teams, each with a specific mandate, style and edge. In theory, with good risk management and internal capital allocation, this can produce robust results...

If you order something from Ukraine right now, be it a T-shirt or a vintage Christmas ornament, chances are it will arrive on time and in good shape. Not only is the country's mail service still operating, even as it grapples with an invasion by Russia, but the role of the post office has also changed. The mail has become a lifeline for Ukrainians who rely on it to receive pension payments, medicine, or to run online businesses as domestic jobs get disrupted. So how exactly is the Ukrainian...

Troubles at Boeing just keep piling up, along with existential questions about the company's future. Not only is Boeing enormously important to US manufacturing, but it's also a major defense contractor for the US government and a big employer, which means its fortunes are of interest to more than just shareholders. So just how bad are the difficulties facing Boeing at the moment and what is the planemaker planning to do about it? On this episode, we speak to Richard Aboulafia, managing...

The growth of electric vehicles has heightened concerns about China's current dominance in lithium-ion batteries. So as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the US government is spending money and providing tax credits to companies that are attempting to build up a domestic supply chain. So what are the real challenges to expanding America's battery-making capacity, both in terms of financing and operations? On this episode, we speak with Dr. Chris Burns, the founder and CEO of Novonix, a...

Last year, Corbu managing director Samuel Rines came on Odd Lots to discuss what exactly companies were saying about why they were raising prices. His argument was that in the post-pandemic environment, with all its associated peculiarities and one-off disruptions, businesses were pursuing a strategy of "price over volume" (POV) to boost their profit margins. Since then, the idea of corporate profits contributing to inflation has gone viral, with the Biden administration repeatedly...

A little less than a year ago, the US financial system was rocked by its first major banking drama since 2008. While the crisis was eventually contained, and only three lenders ended up collapsing, the experience re-ignited an ongoing conversation about the way we rescue troubled lenders. Not only did the Federal Reserve launch a new liquidity program called the Bank Term Funding Program as part of its support to the banking system in 2023, but regulators are now talking about changing...

 Back in 2016, Donald Trump campaigned on a platform that included a much harsher stance toward trade with China, and the US-China Trade War was a big deal while he was in office. But the Biden administration has quietly continued the Trump tariff regime and even enacted more stringent restrictions targeting China's use of technology, including on semiconductors. Now that Trump looks set to get the Republican presidential nomination again, he's suggesting even higher tariffs — of 60% or more...

US oil production has surged to an all-time record of more than 13 million barrels produced per day. But where's all that crude actually going? And how is it being handled and stored? On this episode, we speak with Steven Barsamian, chief operating officer at the Tank Tiger, a clearing house for terminal storage, and co-host of the Tank Talk podcast, about the business of moving and storing oil and its related products. We talk about what storage capacity looks like right now, how it's...

The last week saw a major plunge in shares of New York Community Bancorp after the company revealed challenges in its lending to multi-family residential developers. So what went wrong at this bank? And what does it say about this particular market? On this episode we speak with Quantierra CEO Ben Carlos Thypin, a New York City landlord and investor, about the bank's large role within NYC's rent-stabilized housing market. Over the last year, Ben has advised funds to short NYCB based on its...

We know that companies think carefully about where they open stores. They might look at things like how many people pass by the location on a day-to-day basis or how easy it is to access the site by car. But what are the lesser known factors that go into deciding where to open a brick-and-mortar store? And how have these considerations changed over time? In this episode, we talk about the art of retail site selection. We speak with Tom McGee, CEO of the International Council of Shopping...

In France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, we've seen a wave of protests recently from angry farmers. So what's driving the activity? On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Lorcan Roche Kelly, a former cattle farmer in Western Ireland who is now the business editor at the Irish Farmers Journal. He explains how a combination of factors from climate obligations, economic conditions, government regulation, and free trade deals have put the squeeze on many farms, causing this public...

Attacks on ships in the Red Sea continue to escalate. What started with narrow strikes by Yemeni-based Houthi militants against Israel-linked vessels has now expanded to ships carrying a wide range of freight, including oil and liquified natural gas. The US military has responded with strikes against Houthi targets, but so far they don't appear to have much of a deterring effect. Meanwhile shipping delays and costs — driven in part by anxious insurers — continue to worsen. To understand the...

It's a busy week for the bond market with a meeting of the Federal Reserve and the release of the US Treasury's quarterly refunding statement. While a lot of people have been focusing on when the Fed will cut benchmark interest rates, there's also an ongoing debate about how fast the central bank will shrink its balance sheet given last year's banking crisis and the recent drama in the repo market. In this episode, we speak with Mark Cabana, longtime rates strategist at Bank of America, about...

This week on Lots More, we speak with Claudia Sahm, the former Federal Reserve economist and founder of Sahm Consulting, about the recent uptick in the US unemployment rate. We discuss the implications for the Sahm Rule, the early recession indicator she discovered and which has been a hot topic since the most recent Nonfarm Payrolls report. We also talk about data challenges for economists, the prospect of recession, and dealing with online commenters. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

Today's episode is a special edition of Bloomberg's Big Take DC podcast, featuring an interview with our own Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway. They spoke to Big Take host Saleha Mohsin of Bloomberg News, about how the US has managed to avoid a recession — and whether the Federal Reserve’s decisions were based on reliable data. It also features an interview with Claudia Sahm, an ex-Fed economist and contributor to Bloomberg Opinion. To hear more from Big Take DC, subscribe to their show. See...

There are plenty of one-off risks at the moment, but it seems like betting on pretty much nothing happening is more popular than ever. Investors are increasingly reaching for a wide variety of derivatives to bet against volatility. Those derivatives include one- and zero-day options which expire in 24 hours or less, and have become a hot button topic on Wall Street. So what's the impact of this explosion in options trading? Why is it happening at a time when the possibility of major...

For years, people have been talking about the end of US dollar dominance or how some other currency could usurp its role around the world. But when it comes to global finance and trade, the dollar is as dominant as ever. Given the size of China's economy, the renminbi is considered one potential challenger. And in fact, China is making real moves on this front. On this episode of Lots More, we speak with Zongyuan Zoe Liu, the Maurice R. Greenberg fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and...

The past few years have been pretty wild for anyone working in credit, the business of selling and trading corporate debt. First you had the pandemic, which changed working patterns across Wall Street. Then you had a surge in deal activity that had everyone working overtime to meet demand. Meanwhile, private credit's been booming and is now competing with banks' cash cow businesses of selling bonds and leveraged loans. And finally, everyone is wondering how long the credit space can withstand...

Right now, there's a lot of hope and optimism that the US economy is on a path towards a soft landing. Nonetheless, there are aspects of the current landscape that are unsettling. Inflation has come down, but there's significant debate as to why and how sustainable that move is. Geopolitics is another source of concern, given multiple ongoing conflicts. According to Jason Cummins, the chief economist and head of research at macro hedge fund Brevan Howard, we're currently seeing the demise of...

On Jan. 5, the plug door of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 blew out mid-flight, forcing the plane into an emergency landings with a large hole in fuselage. Miraculously, nobody was hurt or killed, but it could have been a disaster. And it was the latest in the persistent string of mechanical and engineering setbacks that have plagued Boeing over the last six years. Of course, the company went into crisis mode in late 2018 and early 2019 when two different 737 Max planes crashed, killing 346...

In the early 2010s, US shale players were producing oil like crazy, with no concerns about profitability. Then the legs were kicked out from the industry, causing a massive bust and massive oversupply. In 2021 and 2022, it looked like a very different story. Oil prices were surging and it seemed as though US players had found religion, learning how to maintain production discipline and improve profitability. But now we're in a new era that nobody saw coming: US oil production is booming. In...

A possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan has become a top-of-mind concern in defense and corporate circles in recent years. But what would such an attack actually look like? And what would be the economic impact to world if it actually happened? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Jennifer Welch, chief geo-economics analyst at Bloomberg Economics and Gerard DiPippo, senior geo-economics analyst at Bloomberg Economics. Jennifer and Gerard, along with a larger team of Bloomberg...

For anyone interested in investing in the health-care space, JPMorgan's annual Health Care Conference has become one of the most important events of the year. We were not able to get to San Francisco this year, but one of our favorite Odd Lots guests, James van Geelen of CitriniResearch.com, was in attendance. He called into this week's episode of Lots More to tell us what the leading players in health care and medical technology are buzzing about right now — and he confirms that AI and GLP-1...