Here's a couple things about prediction markets. A lot of it is pure gambling and speculation, much of it on things with very little economic relevance. Another fact is that in all likelihood, if you yourself started trading right now, you'd probably lose your shirt. But there is money being made by some dedicated traders, really focused on areas like politics and economics. On this episode, we speak with Brian Golden and Daniel Reichman, who are part of a private Discord called Maga Kiwi Club, where serious prediction markets traders swap ideas and make real money. We discuss the remarkable efforts they go to in order to spot opportunities, the systematic biases among traders, how they feel about insider trading, and other major issues that surround the space. Alongside Brian and Daniel, we also speak with NYC-based journalist and producer Adam Iscoe, who recently profiled these traders for The New York Times Magazine. Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In June, grocery giant Aldi opened a store just off of Times Square in Manhattan. It's the company's first location in Midtown and, according to their US Chief Commercial Officer Scott Patton, Aldi has to orchestrate a "logistical symphony" to get groceries into the middle of one of the busiest places in America. For instance, they use shorter trucks to navigate the tight corners of New York City streets. On this episode, we speak with Patton about what it took to open this specific Aldi and why they chose a busy tourist location like Times Square. He also explains how the company — famous for its low prices — is able to sell even wagyu ground beef at a consumer-friendly price point, how the mostly private-label grocer thinks through which name brands to incorporate into their stock, Aldi's cult-favorite "Aisle of Shame," a short history of barcode innovation, and how GLP-1s are changing consumer habits. Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's this weird contradiction that hovers almost all conversations regarding the Chinese economy. On the one hand, the growth and rising material prosperity is undeniable. And of course, Chinese industrial giants are at the frontier in all kinds of things, like batteries. On the other hand, you always hear about a soft domestic market, and a general state of unease among workers who fear that precarity is around the corner. So how is this contradiction explained? And how does it affect day-to-day life? On this episode, we bring back one of our regular guests Dan Wang, who recently returned from a long trip to Shanghai. We discuss his observations, the general ennui he saw, the signs of domestic weakness, and the way in which phone culture is reshaping Chinese society.Read more: It’s Too Soon to Breathe Easy on China’s EconomyOnly Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the China tech space, Baidu is now a full-stack player in the AI industry. The company makes its own chips, has its own AI models (Ernie), its own cloud system, and it's integrating AI into its self-driving car business, Apollo Go. But before all this, Baidu was known for being China's leader in search. Things, obviously, have changed a lot since the company was founded in the late 1990s. In today's episode, we speak with Baidu CFO Henry He about the company's AI ambitions. He talks to us about maximizing token spend, how Chinese tech firms are thinking about safety and alignment, the global robotaxi competition, and how the core search business fits into the company now. Read more:Chinese AI Stocks Rally on Demand Optimism and Policy SupportUS Seeks AI Partnership With EU on Regulation, Supply Chains Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots NewsletterJoin the conversation: discord.gg/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We know that companies around the world are investing heavily in AI. So intense is the race to win the AI battle, that it feels like there's almost no upward limit on how much you could spend on it. So how are CFOs thinking about capex in the AI age? In this episode we speak with Winston Cheng, CFO of Chinese-founded multinational tech firm Lenovo. Lenovo is known for its personal computers, especially its Thinkpad line of laptops, but they are making a push to move beyond its role as one of the leaders in personal computing, integrating AI agents into their devices and investing in building out an “AI Cloud” infrastructure alongside Nvidia. We talk to Cheng about how Lenovo's allocating capital during one of the biggest capex booms in history. We also discuss involution and market competition in China, and how Lenovo's been adapting its supply chain to tariffs. Read more:AI Sales Start to Justify Data-Center Spending Boom, Report SaysAnthropic Accuses Alibaba of ‘Illicitly’ Accessing AI Models Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots NewsletterJoin the conversation: discord.gg/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Strait of Hormuz has (mostly) re-opened! Crude prices are still up since the start of the war with Iran, but popular predictions earlier this year of $200-a-barrel Brent didn’t pan out. Why is that? We last talked to Rory Johnston, the founder of the Commodity Context newsletter, at the start of the conflict. And in that conversation he said that the Strait’s closure would lead to $200 oil if it persisted for any length of time. Today, he returns to tell us what he’s learned about the oil market since then. He explains the various factors that kept a lid on prices, including some re-routing, Trump jawboning, and (crucially) surprise import reductions from China. Previous: Rory Johnston on How Oil Could Surge to Over $200 a Barrel Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The last time the World Cup came to the US was 1994. Before then, the World Cup was an enormously popular event with surprisingly limited commercial significance; the 1990 tournament in Italy, for instance, lost money for broadcasters. But that all changed in 1994, when American companies sought to make their mark in the form of advertisements and sponsorships: firms like McDonalds, Mastercard, and General Motors saw the potential to reach a global audience through one of the world's most watched sports events. Today, we speak with Joey D'Urso — a freelance sports journalist and author of the recent book More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power — about the 1994 World Cup and this year's competition, which is being held jointly, by the US, Canada, and Mexico. We also talk about other surprising stories of corporate and geopolitical influence in the world of football. Read more:Unilever, Pepsi Tap Celebrities, Players During World CupMexico’s Sheinbaum Invites Merlín the Duck to National Palace Amid Soccer Craze Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots NewsletterJoin the conversation: discord.gg/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China's AI industry has changed a lot since DeepSeek released its cheap frontier model last year, and briefly sent US tech stocks falling. After being locked out of the most advanced chips, Chinese companies are now allowed to buy some Nvidia H200s. In fact, many of the big Chinese tech companies — like Baidu — are making a push to become full-stack players, with their own chips, models, and cloud infrastructure. Today's guest is Grace Shao, an independent AI researcher and the author of the AI Proem Substack. She's a bit of an insider when it comes to China's AI industry, and when we were in Hong Kong we spoke with her about the latest in open-source models, the competition among Chinese frontier labs, DeepSeek's place in an increasingly crowded Chinese AI market, China's manufacturing edge, where bottlenecks exist right now (spoiler: it isn't data centers), if Chinese grandmas are actually using OpenClaw, and finally, of course, AI psychosis. Read More:China AI Lab’s 170% Stock Surge Cements Winner-Loser Pair Trade China Plans Mechanism to Evaluate AI Impacts on Job Market Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots NewsletterJoin the conversation: discord.gg/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We closed out our New York live show on May 28 with a panel that featured three of our favorite Substackers: James van Geelen of Citrini Research, Sam Ro, founder of The TKer, and journalist Jasmine Sun. They've all been Odd Lots guests before, and we wanted to get them together to discuss how journalists and analysts are supposed to cover this incredibly strange and highly pressurized moment in markets. Not only has AI basically infected every corner of the world, the media included, but there's just so much news that it's sometimes hard to figure out what the focus should be. But James, Sam, and Jasmine have all found their own niches, and cover AI in a really unique way. This panel discussion debates how the media has covered fears over the AI bubble and the possibility of mass job loss, if people in Silicon Valley are scared about the future of society, if AI can really mimic a writer's voice and personality, and (if they can) how writers can hedge against that future. Read more:Amazon in Talks to Sell Custom AI Chips in Bid to Undercut NvidiaAI Company Dream Triples Value to $3 Billion in Funding Round Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots NewsletterJoin the conversation: discord.gg/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a lot to unpack with AI right now — everything from its potential impacts on the labor market and society to more extreme questions about existential risk. Anthropic, which builds frontier models like Mythos, Fable, and Claude, is actively grappling with these issues, including whether governments should limit AI development. Just last week, the Trump administration forced Anthropic to block foreign access to its two leading models. In this episode, we speak with Jack Clark (co-founder and head of public benefit) and Peter McCrory (head economist) about how Anthropic approaches safety and economic risks. We talk about its preparations for recursive self-improvement, the engineers it's hiring now, and why Jack left Bloomberg to enter the early AI industry. Read more:Anthropic Lays Out Vision for How to Bolster AI Models’ SafetyMicrosoft Makes Big AI Inroads in China by Selling OpenAI Models Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots NewsletterJoin the conversation: discord.gg/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.