Odd Lots

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Latest Episodes:

Zoltan Pozsar and Perry Mehrling On The Historic Crisis Of Financial Market Plumbing Mar 30, 2020

Show notes

The plumbing of the financial system is coming under strain like never before. On this week’s podcast, we speak with two legendary experts on how the money system works: Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse and Perry Mehrling of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. They explain the extreme level of stress we’re seeing, what the Fed has done to alleviate, what more needs to be done, and what the post-crisis future may look like.

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How The Crisis Nearly Blew Up One Of The World’s Safest Trades Mar 26, 2020

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In normal times, U.S. Treasuries are the ultimate safe haven. They are highly liquid and guaranteed to pay out. So when people want to hide out during periods of economic and financial market volatility, you can typically count on there being a strong bid for them. But in the last couple of weeks, the volatility has been so extreme, and the flight-to-cash so severe, that the market stopped behaving as normal. And popular trades involving arbing Treasuries and Treasury bond futures started to fail. On today’s episode, we speak with Josh Younger, a managing director at JPMorgan, who explains how and why it started to fall apart.

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A Longstanding Fear About The Corporate Debt Market May Finally Be Coming True Mar 23, 2020

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For a long time, people have been warning that corporate debt could be the major source of vulnerability in today's economy. And the market meltdown that we've been seeing since the beginning of March could make those fears a reality. On this week's podcast, we speak with frequent Odd Lots guest Chris White of Viable Markets, on how the extreme search for yield in recent years, combined with massive issuance of debt, combined with the idiosyncrasies of the corporate debt market, could be a setup primed for disaster.

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How A Macro Manager Is Trading On One Of The Wildest Markets In History Mar 19, 2020

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Markets around the world are so extremely volatile that nobody can think of any perfect precedent. There are shades of the Great Recession, 1987, the period in the wake of 9/11, and other moments of extreme turbulence. This week's special episode was recorded on Monday March 16 with Naufal Sanaullah, a macro strategist at EIA All Weather Alpha Partners. He walked us through his thinking on the market, and even discussed how he was trading things, right then, during the market open.

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How Saudi Arabia Delivered A Blow To U.S. Shale Companies At The Worst Possible Moment Mar 16, 2020

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Saudi Arabia recently announced that it was engaging in a full-on price war by pumping oil like crazy. At one point, after the move, the price of Brent Crude plunged 31%. This was a body blow to U.S. shale companies, who are already reeling from falling prices and tightening credit markets. On this week's episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Buddy Clark, a Houston lawyer at the offices of Haynes and Boone about why this came at the worst possible time for the industry, and what could happen next.

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How To Stop The Recession From Happening Right Now Mar 12, 2020

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The U.S. is on the verge of an economic crisis due to the coronavirus, as people and businesses aggressively pull back on spending. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Claudia Sahm, the director of Macroeconomic Policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, about what the government can be doing right now to stop a recession. Claudia has done extensive research on exactly this topic, and now is the moment to put her theoretical work into practice.

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Did Passive Investing Fuel A Bubble In Ultra-Large Tech Stocks? Mar 09, 2020

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Questions continue to arise over the effect of passive investing, and whether or not it's somehow distorting the market. On this week's episode, we speak to Vincent Deluard, the Director of Global Macro for INTL FCStone Inc., who argues that the endless bid for ETFs have helped fuel a bubble in megacap stocks, which continue to outperform the market.

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How A Profane Subreddit Moved The Market Mar 05, 2020

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In recent weeks, before the stock market plunged, a page on reddit called r/WallStreetBets suddenly started exhibiting enormous influence on a handful of stocks. The emergence of online chat rooms making huge wagers in the market calls to mind the message boards of the dotcom era. But this page is taking it to a new level. On this week's episode, we're joined by Bloomberg News reporter Luke Kawa, who has been covering the page, as well as the page's founder, Jaime Rogozinski, who started it up in 2012.

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How Iraq Pulled Off One Of The Biggest Sovereign Debt Restructurings Of All Time Mar 02, 2020

Show notes

There are lots of famous debt crises in history, but the story of Iraq's government debt build-up in the 1980s and subsequent restructuring in the early 2000s is probably one of the most unusual. Iraq transformed from a net creditor to a net borrower in a single decade, tapping a bunch of unusual sources (including funds linked to the CIA) for money to finance war against Iran. All that borrowing eventually culminated in one of the biggest debt restructurings in history. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Simon Hinrichsen, a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics, and the first to trace the build-up of Iraq's debt going back to 1979. He walks us through lessons learned from the Iraq restructuring – including one big missed opportunity in the world of sovereign debt.

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This Is What The Coronavirus Means For The Chinese Supply Chain Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

Apple's recent revenue warning reminded the world of how exposed the company is to China, and in particular its factories. As the coronavirus continues to shutter huge swaths of the Chinese economy, this is a potential risk for numerous companies beyond just Apple. On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Dan Wang, a China tech industry analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics about how this, along with pressure on Huawei, are putting extraordinary pressure on the Chinese supply chain.

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