Essential Listening: Insider Trading

One of the challenges of curating podcasts is that it is more difficult to sample a podcast than it is a blog post or article. That is why podcast recommendations from trusted sources are so valuable. Not surprisingly, the end of the year is a popular time to compile these types of lists.

There is a difference between recommending a podcast installment and a podcast series itself. The folks at The Atlantic recently published a post highlighting “The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2015.” You will find an eclectic mix of material from stalwarts like This American Life and Fresh Air, among others. Another way to expand your podcasting consumption is to find some that are similar to those you already enjoy. Melissa Locker at Fast Company has a number of recommendations: For everyone who is a fan of Marc Maron‘s podcast, she suggests Aisha Tyler’s.

Not only do podcasts vary in their target audience and style, they also differ (widely) in their audio quality. James Altucher and Stephen Dubner in their Question of the Day podcast try to explain why there are such wide discrepancies. The reason is, in part, that producing high-quality audio is both time consuming and expensive.

For another week, we are finance-light, so feel free to check out previous weeks’ editions of Essential Listening. Let’s move on to a new list of podcasts to finish out the year that will make your next workout or commute more enjoyable.

• Jake Taylor asks Michael Mauboussin, author of The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports and Investing, five good questions. Among the topics they address are why we have such a difficult time differentiating skill and luck, especially in the realm of investing, and how to become a better forecaster. (Five Good Questions)
• Zack Miller interviews Brian Weinstein of Blue Elephant about how he transitioned from the world of mainstream money managers to the realm of alternative lending. In addition, they discuss the analytics required to examine peer-to-peer loans and the degree to which they are suitable for institutional investors. (Tradestreaming)
• The “failure” of the Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund shook the high-yield markets in particular and the broader markets in general. Christine Benz and Russel Kinnel talk about why the fund had to shut its doors as well as the larger implications for the mutual fund world. (Morningstar)
• There are many people who claim to have foreseen the financial crisis of the late 2000s, but few were documenting their predictions in real time. Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway, and Bill McBride discuss the late “Tanta,” Doris Dungey, who anticipated the housing meltdown and contributed to our understanding of the mortgage industry as a writer for McBride’s Calculated Risk blog. (Odd Lots)
• Insider trading is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Other times, it is in vivid black and white. Jacob Goldstein and David Kestenbaum talk with a convicted (and admitted) insider trader Scott London, who explains why and how he did it and what he got out of it. (Planet Money)
• Fellow economists Russ Roberts and Noah Smith contemplate whether economics qualifies as an actual science. They also consider the state of econometrics and what we can actually learn from lab and natural experiments in economics. (EconTalk)
• Felix Salmon chats with Harold Pollack, co-author of The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated, about the degree to which simple financial advice needs additional explanation and how experience plays a role in our financial lives. (Slate)
• Data-driven explanations are increasingly popular in the mainstream press. This is even true in the world of food. Dan Pashman talks with J. Kenji López-Alt, author of The Food Lab: Better Cooking through Science, about debunking the utility of common cooking techniques using science and how we taste as much with our brains as with our tongues. (The Sporkful)
• It’s not often that the “greatest of all time” retires from a sport. Recently, however, Abby Wambach stepped down from the US Women’s National Soccer Team. Bill Simmons interviews Wambach about her long career, what comes next, and the ongoing differences between men’s and women’s sports. (The Bill Simmons Podcast)

Feel free to leave a comment with other podcasts Enterprising Investor readers/listeners might enjoy. I may highlight your suggestion in this ongoing series on the world of podcasting.

You can read more from Tadas Viskanta on his blog Abnormal Returns or follow him on Twitter @abnormalreturns.

If you liked this post, don’t forget to subscribe to the Enterprising Investor.

All posts are the opinion of the author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CFA Institute or the author’s employer.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Big_Ryan