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Odd Lots

Why the Price of Oil, Beef, Electricity, and Everything Else Makes No Sense

Odd Lots

Bloomberg

Business, News, News Commentary, Investing, Business News

4.52K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Whether it's the price of a barrel of Brent crude or a pound of beef, it's clear prices are skyrocketing for all kinds of goods and commodities. Price shocks and shortages are, if anything, the way consumers understand the economy right now — at the grocery store or at the gas pump. Certainly, current (and future) shocks can be explained by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But the environment is weirder than just across the board price increases: The price of corn has barely moved, for instance, while fertilizer just keeps going up. We have not one but two perfect guests to talk to us today, our favorite commodity specialists: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas and Lorcan Roche Kelly, the business editor at Irish Farmers Journal. Today's episode — which was recorded on stage at Wilton's Music Hall in London as part of our first ever show outside the US — covers how the world's farmers feel about US trade policy, why today's energy shock is so different from 2022's, the true impact of the UAE leaving OPEC, and why it's going to get harder to buy hard cheese in the near future.

Read more:
Global Bond Selloff Worsens as Rising Oil Prices Spook Investors
China Allows Exports for 425 US Beef Plants, Trade Group Says

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Oddlots is brought to you by Vanek.

0:02.1

For years, investors basically forgot about real assets, energy, gold, and infrastructure.

0:07.2

But look what's driving markets now.

0:09.3

Central banks loading up on gold, massive cap-ex cycles, currencies doing weird things.

0:14.3

These assets are at the center of it.

0:16.3

RACs, the Van Eck Real Asset, ETF is an actively managed one-stop shop for real assets

0:22.0

spanning gold, commodities,

0:23.8

natural resource equities, and more.

0:25.9

Go to vanek.com slash R-A-A-A-X pod to learn more.

0:30.5

Fun disclosures later in this episode.

0:33.1

Some follow the noise.

0:35.6

Bloomberg follows the money,

0:37.8

because behind every headline is a bottom line.

0:41.6

Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings,

0:46.2

there's a money side to every story.

0:48.9

And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss.

0:53.3

Get the money side of the story.

0:55.3

Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.

1:02.4

Bloomberg Audio Studios,

1:05.0

Podcasts, Radio News.

1:07.4

Music. News.

1:22.7

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway.

...

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