Odd Lots

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The Macro Implications of the Blue Tsunami Nov 06, 2026

Show notes

We don't need to tell you that the midterm elections were historic: The Democrats won bigger than even they imagined. But as the dust settles, an open question we are puzzling over is the market's ongoing reaction to this massive political sea change. Democratic control of Congress — and control over a number of formerly red statehouses, like Texas and Iowa — will influence everything from the composition of the FOMC to data center construction. And what we're seeing right now, with stocks like Tesla and SpaceX tumbling, is a direct response to these conditions. To get a better sense of this macro moment, we turn to Odd Lots regular, Employ America's executive director Skanda Amarnath to talk about how the midterms will influence the Fed's battle with inflation, Elon Musk's political instincts, and what a Democratic majority means for the market, tariffs, and AI.

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James Bosworth on What Comes After Lula's Stunning Win Nov 05, 2026

Show notes

When we last talked to James Bosworth, it seemed like an “orange wave” was going to take over Latin America and further realign the region’s interests with those of the Trump administration. But with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s surprise victory in Brazil’s presidential election last month, and opposition leader María Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela, it now looks like the orange wave might be cresting. Bosworth — a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center and the author of the Latin America Risk Report newsletter — comes back to the show to explain how Lula pulled off his upset win over Flavio Bolsonaro, the impact of Machado’s return to Venezuela, and why 2027 might further reshape the politics of Latin America.

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An Election Day Special With Nate Silver Nov 03, 2026

Show notes

Nate Silver tells us he is calling this midterms the “rock and a hard place election” — the background conditions are great for Democrats to win both the House and the Senate, but for that to come to pass, the party has to pull off some things that haven't happened in generations, like winning Texas. To believe that will happen requires a certain leap of faith, which is anathema to pollsters. Still, the polls generally believe Democrats are favored, but many professional pollsters would end up with egg on their face if the night does not go that way. Silver — the founder of Silver Bulletin — joins us today to discuss why popular narratives around polling error are wrong, prediction markets, why he doesn't think AI will replace pollsters, and what he is paying attention to tonight as the polls close.

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The $300 Billion Structured Notes Market Is Booming Nov 02, 2026

Show notes

The structured products business in the US has gotten very large recently — on track to hit $300 billion in sales this year. That they are all the rage means a once opaque financial product is getting a lot more attention. So what are structured products, exactly, and how are they influencing the economy? In short, structured products are basically a fusion of a bank IOU with a derivative product, but that underplays how complex these things are and how they are shaping market dynamics. What is particularly interesting about structured notes is how they've become a stand-in for how investors are betting on the AI trade — the ways these products are structured allow market actors to really capitalize on some of the turbulence we're seeing. On this episode, we speak with Alex Micalizzi, who is the international head of equity structured notes at Nomura, and he gives us what might be the clearest explanation of how structured products are created, how they work, and why sales in structured products have grown so much in the last year.
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PHP2Shell Won't Be the Last Big AI Cybersecurity Risk Oct 30, 2026

Show notes

Earlier this year, cybersecurity researchers discovered a vulnerability in PHP, an open-source coding language used in roughly 70% of the world's websites, that had been lying dormant for a long time, and if exploited, could have led to disaster. And the researchers only understood the extent of this bug through the use of frontier AI models. Today, we talk to two staffers at Calif (CEO Thai Duong and engineer Bruce Dang), the cybersecurity firm that was among the first to discover the PHP vulnerability. Their firm partners with the major AI labs and neoclouds, and they help these companies test models and look for vulnerabilities in their infrastructure. Duong and Dang tell us how Calif uncovered the PHP hack, what the firm exactly sells, and what the future of cybersecurity looks like in the age of AI.

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What Wall Street Really Thinks About the AI Trade Now Oct 29, 2026

Show notes

It has been a big week for the AI trade — we've seen wobbles in the market, many of them in response to headlines like the Anthropic S-1 and earnings from the hyperscalers (Oracle, Microsoft, etc.). So what does Wall Street make of all the news, and how are they processing an increasing sense that the laws of the economy barely apply to AI? Today, we speak with Alexander 'Alty' Altmann, global head of equities tactical strategies at Barclays, and he helps us make sense of how Wall Street really feels about the AI trade right now. We also talk about the KOSPI-fication of the S&P 500, if there are any historical precedents for the capex going into the AI buildout, and if AI is really immune to interest rates.
Read More: Microsoft Reports Rising Cloud Sales That Show Payoff From AI
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AI Agents Are Already Changing the Price of Goods Oct 26, 2026

Show notes

It's obvious that things are getting more expensive, and there are plenty of reasons behind the surge in prices — whether it's wars or inflation or companies padding their profit margins. But with the release of AI agents like Meta's Muse, tech companies are promising consumers that agents will start saving them tons of money by finding the best deals. According to today's guest, Lindsay Owens, the history of price gouging does not bode well for claims that things might get cheaper because of new technology, and research conducted by her think tank Groundwork Collaborative shows that a number of consumer facing agents end up serving customers more expensive items after learning more about their financial situation. Her new book Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — and What That Means for Your Wallet gets into the history of how companies got away with charging more for their goods, through means like data collection and surveillance. Today we talk to Owens about how AI agents are already changing the idea of a fair price, all the pre-AI ways that companies price gouged, and her new book.

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How a Chicago Restaurant Has Stayed Open For Nearly Three Decades Oct 24, 2026

Show notes

Richard Mott's first foray into hospitality was in the 1980s at the University of Chicago, where he started running a coffee shop in the basement of the business school when he was a grad student. By the time he graduated, he helped grow that single coffee shop into four locations across campus. He's a longtime Chicago-based restaurateur and his farm-to-table restaurant North Pond has been around since the late 1990s. Lately, he's expanded his business to include Spark Shared Kitchen, a catering facility and incubator for food entrepreneurs. He knows a lot about the practical economics of restaurants and hospitality at large, and in his decades-long career in the Chicago scene he's seen about everything. On our recent trip to Chicago, we sat down with Mott to talk about the ever-increasing price of food and labor, why diners are drinking less, and the expected and unexpected reasons that restaurants so often fail.

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The Forgotten Godmother of Economic Literature Oct 23, 2026

Show notes

In 1776, the field of economics was born with the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. And among the book's earliest readers, and most ardent advocates, was a Regency-era novelist named Maria Edgeworth. In her time, Edgeworth was one of the most famous literary figures in England, and she smuggled into her stories economic concepts and debates around rent seeking, the idea of productive labor, and so on. These works were enormously influential and they helped expose a generation to practical applications of Smith's new theories. Yet when you read about the history of economics, Edgeworth's name is hardly ever mentioned. Jeanna Smialek, a veteran reporter and the Brussels bureau chief at The New York Times, thinks Edgeworth's name needs to be placed back in the pantheon of economic history. On this episode, we speak with Smialek about her biography, The Invisible Hand of Maria Edgeworth, and we discuss Edgeworth's friendly debates with the likes of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, how the Irish potato famine reshaped economic thought, and how Edgeworth used the novel form to educate the masses on the value of economics.
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Bhaskar Sunkara Thinks the Market Has a Place Under Socialism Oct 22, 2026

Show notes

In September, Gallup released a poll that showed that 43% percent of Americans viewed socialism positively, the highest approval since Gallup began the poll back in 2010. Since Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral election, the left has made a number of gains across national politics. Still, the majority of Americans view socialism negatively, according to Gallup. As a longtime DSA member and veteran of leftist media, Bhaskar Sunkara is one of socialism's leading advocates, and he's spent much of his career charting what a socialist economy in America might look like. Unlike some other leftists, he believes the market has a place. In fact, he thinks markets and entrepreneurs are an objective good in society. He proposes a vision of so-called "market socialism" in his recent co-authored book The Blueprint, and he lays out this system for us in today's episode. We talk about how many features of capitalism — from small businesses to monetary policy — might be remade under socialist principles.

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