Odd Lots

Over the last decade or so, we've seen an incredible rise in so-called passive investing. While definitions differ over what this means, we've seen more and more money poured into index funds (which own every stock in a given basket). Meanwhile, money has been yanked away from money managers who attempt to select individual stocks. One school of thought argues that this is a positive, in part due to lower fees...

There's a growing consensus that governments need to act more aggressively in using fiscal policy to stave off the next recession, and that monetary policy simply isn't powerful enough...

Even to this day, there are economists who don't understand money or don't think that money is an important aspect of the economy. They see the world as still operating essentially under a barter system, with money only there as a means of lubricating transactions. But this is precisely the opposite way you should be looking at things, according to this week's guest...

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, there was a lot of talk about the need to change the world's energy usage in order to address climate change. While it's easy to get cynical about business leaders and politicians talking about sustainability on a mountaintop in Switzerland, it turns out that a lot is already happening right now...

What's the connection between low global interest rates, Korean retail investors, and the U.S. options market? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we discuss the fascinating world of Korean structured notes with Benn Eifert of QVR Advisors. He explains how a very exotic type of investment sold to Korean retail investors could, through a series of hedging requirements, end up causing massive volatility in the market for S&P 500 options.

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Iran's stock market is one of the most unfamiliar equity markets in the world. With Iran under stringent U.S. sanctions, it's hard to even find data on where Iranian stocks are trading. Then there's geopolitical risk. This month the U.S. killed Iran's top general Qassem Soleimani and Iran retaliated by firing missiles at U.S.-Iraqi air bases, sparking a sell-off in global markets...

Americans are paying more and getting less for their health care than ever before. On the new season of Prognosis, reporter John Tozzi explores what went wrong. 

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From Argentina to Chile to Lebanon, we're seeing a high degree of political and economic uncertainty among emerging market economies. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Paul McNamara, a veteran fund manager at GAM Investments. McNamara explains why this moment is so turbulent, and what it will take to settle these economies down.

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The severity of the Great Financial Crisis took economists by surprise, particularly the ones who believed that markets were largely stable and self-regulating. So why did so many eminent thinkers get it so wrong? On this week's episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Lord Robert Skidelsky, an economic historian who is known for being the pre-eminent biographer of John Maynard Keynes...

When people think about Bitcoin, they often think about neo-goldbugs who hate inflation and the Federal Reserve. But beyond the financial case for it, there's a moral, human rights case as well. On this week's podcast, we talk with Alex Gladstein, the Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. He explains why he sees Bitcoin as an essential tool in his fight for human rights all around the world.

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