Vineer Bhansali on Losing Fed Independence as the Biggest Tail Risk Right Now
Odd Lots13 Sep 2025

Vineer Bhansali on Losing Fed Independence as the Biggest Tail Risk Right Now

Everyone wants to buy the hedge that will save their portfolio in a time of collapse. But this is easier said than done. You need to understand the specific risks facing your portfolio. You also need to get the disaster state right. Plus, insurance of any sort is costly. This means tail risk hedging is far from a trivial exercise. On this episode, we talk to someone who's been working on the problem for a long time. Vineer Bhansali is the CIO and founder of LongTail Alpha, which works to develop hedging implementations to prevent against left tail outcomes. Bhansali, who started off as an academic physicist before going to Wall Street, talks to us about options theory, the role of quantitative techniques, the time he won big in Liar's Poker, and why he perceives the loss of Fed independence as the biggest risk right now.

Read more:
Wall Street Rallies as Fed Gets All-Clear to Cut: Markets Wrap
Gold Surpasses Inflation-Adjusted Record High Set in 1980

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episoder(1193)

This Is How to Tell if Writing Was Made by AI

This Is How to Tell if Writing Was Made by AI

When you consider the fact that many people don't know how and where to place a comma, it's safe to say that AI is already better than most people at writing. It's clean copy. It can be surprisingly p...

2 Apr 48min

Javier Blas on Why Oil Could Go Much, Much Higher

Javier Blas on Why Oil Could Go Much, Much Higher

Oil has shot up by a lot since the start of war with Iran. But it could still get much worse. So far, the massive disruption (due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz) has been cushioned by the draw...

1 Apr 41min

Why NASA Hired a Chief Economist

Why NASA Hired a Chief Economist

This week, NASA is scheduled to launch Artemis II, a mission that will send astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. But this comes at a time when the space agency is facin...

31 Mar 49min

Goldman CIO Marco Argenti on the Warp-Speed Improvements in AI

Goldman CIO Marco Argenti on the Warp-Speed Improvements in AI

When we last spoke to Marco Argenti, chief information officer at Goldman Sachs, we were talking about how the bank was deploying AI, including the development of its own internal tools. But that was ...

30 Mar 52min

Anthropic, the Pentagon, and the Future of Autonomous Weapons

Anthropic, the Pentagon, and the Future of Autonomous Weapons

The last big story right before the war in Iran started was the collapse in the relationship between the Pentagon and Anthropic, with the latter objecting to any potential use of its models in either ...

28 Mar 51min

Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons

Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons

Ripple effects from the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to widen. There's yet another brewing shortage, this time in helium. While most people associate helium with balloo...

27 Mar 50min

This Is How Big Money Is Trading the War in Iran

This Is How Big Money Is Trading the War in Iran

Markets are often said to be "headline-driven," but that cliché has rarely felt more true than it does right now. A single tweet or Truth Social post can send prices sharply higher or lower, and inves...

26 Mar 39min

The Petrochemicals Shock That's Already Rippling Through Plastics

The Petrochemicals Shock That's Already Rippling Through Plastics

Everyone knows by now that war in Iran is curbing the flow of oil around the world. But oil isn't just a gasoline and jet fuel story, of course. It's also a crucial feedstock for a bunch of petrochemi...

25 Mar 53min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
pengepodden-2
pengesnakk
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
rss-politisk-preik
utbytte
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
finansredaksjonen
lederpodden
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
rss-markedspuls-2
liberal-halvtime
rss-sunn-okonomi
rss-pa-konto