Stocks & Markets Podcast: Peter Tchir on Geopolitics, Power Prices and ProSec

Given all that is happening on the geopolitical front, we can’t think of a better person to talk with on our first Stocks & Markets podcast of 2026 than Peter Tchir, Head of Macro Strategy at Academy Securities and contributor at TheStreet Pro.

We discuss Peter’s ProSec investment theme for this year, companies that could benefit, and how the theme fits with the 2026 mid-term elections. We also discuss implications of geopolitical developments in Venezuela, the likely impact on U.S.-China relations, and how developments in Greenland could impact the European Union.

Peter also shares why he sees electricity prices and the bills homeowners receive being a big topic in the coming months. We also dish on prospects for the jobs market, and why Peter is more bullish on the housing market in 2027-2028 than he is for this year.

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Transcript

Chris Versace (CV)

Hey, folks, Chris Versace here, portfolio manager of the Street Pro Portfolio. It is time for another Stocks and Markets podcast. And I have to say, coming out of the gate, I think we have an extremely timely conversation given all that's going on. Yeah, we have a slew of economic data as we begin the first full week of trading.

In January, I'm sure we'll talk about it, but we also have renewed geopolitical tensions given what's going on in Venezuela, Greenland headlines, and other breaking news that I'm sure we'll get to. So who better to have join us than Peter Scheer, head of macro strategy at Academy Securities and Street Pro contributor.

Peter, it's been a while since we chatted. Thank you for joining me. How are things?

Peter Tchir (PT)

Excellent. You know, very busy start to the year with everything we do on the geopolitical front as well as the normal starter year stuff. So it's exciting. I think it's gonna be a long year at this pace though.

Don't say that because I felt like 2025 was a very long year. I don't know if you felt this way, but really from about January, early February, every day checking the headlines, see, seeing what was said, what it might mean. Is it real? Is it, you know, a shell game, you know, so you're thinking we're in for more of that.

I do. I think, you know, the administration wants to get a lot accomplished. They want to get a lot accomplished ahead of the midterm elections. I think their whole goal is to win the midterm elections and they realize probably stocks being higher coming into the midterms is a part of that. So I think they're going to try and do a lot of things. I'm not sure whether they'll be successful or not.

But that's kind of, I think, what we're facing right now.

To me, you know, you start looking at accumulating, I think we're at 240 now of tariff. That's all good. But now you're going to start seeing the bite and I think everyone had a quarter to two or one. They preloaded things. So you had goods that some were tariff, some weren't.

Two, you realize, shoot, you can't say anything about tariffs because the administration's going to come after you. But now I think those are starting to hit people and they're starting to hit the economy and it's really hard to get around, right? Basically, if you have twice a year inventory turnover, well, now every inventory has been turned over into a new tariff world. Everyone's trying to figure it out. And I think.

It's almost like when we talk about the budget deficit, everybody's like, oh, deficit's going to be 10 trillion in the next five years, bonds have to sell off today. Yeah, no, that budget deficit increases slowly over time and will impact. And I think that's where we're with tariffs is it's starting to have this bite, it's starting to hurt companies, it's starting to hurt profitability and people are very reluctant.

I'll be really curious to see if January, February, you start seeing a lot of new hires come on board or not, because I think there's a small window that either people start getting on board with this. You know, my understanding is you can see it in last year's college.

Employment rate, it's not as high as it has been before. And this year, everything you hear anecdotally is if you're coming out of college, this is a brutal time to be looking for a job.

Yeah, everything I've heard is go, go get your masters, go to law school, go to Med school, right?

Yeah. And you know, we, I think we talked about that in the summer. You know, one of the things that always has convinced me the job market's worse than we've seen is the law school applications are off the chart. And again, law school is a place you can kind of hang out right while you're doing something and three years is better than sitting at home, I guess.

I don't know many lawyers who would say they were hanging out in law school, but but I get what you're saying on the housing market. I I've been we at the pro portfolio have avoided it. We've been very concerned about, you know, the pace of job creation, the use of incentives.

Sales, sweeteners, impact on margins. I do think we might see some room to some improvement in the next couple months for the repair remodel side of it. But when it comes to the housing market, being a macroeconomist, what's what's the Canary in the coal mine that you're looking for?

You know, this is the one thing that's kind of ironic is I think Trump and Besson are really convinced that they got to get mortgage rates lower, which will somehow help the housing market. I just don't. I I see that being inflationary. I I see like, OK, now I can afford more people. I don't think they're going to free it up that way.

You know, the one thing, and this is probably sounds pretty harsh, but I think the one issue would be if they actually are successful in reducing immigration, sending people back, or on the successful side, if people decide to leave and go back to their own countries because, hey, the job opportunities now in Venezuela or Mexico are better, that could actually relieve some pressure on the housing where you actually free up some.

Existing homes or existing, you know, rental properties as those people leave. Other than that, I I don't see how this, you know, does very well anytime soon. The only other way I think that we can see real kind of affordability. And so when I traded the high yield home builders, you know, talked to Mr. Toll and he he was the one thing he told me.

Bob Toll. You spoke to Bob Toll back in the day.

Oh yeah, yeah. Bob told, you know, we were a big trader of his bonds. So the one thing he said that has really resonated with me is the builders, at least in this day, make the most money when they're developing property in new areas. So when new areas get exciting, like Las Vegas, they can make a lot of money because they can buy good property, put a nice house on it and sell it.

They struggle to make money when everyone wants to move to New York or everyone wants to move to Miami because all the good property is taken. So if I'm right and you start getting some of this reindustrialization, it could create almost like fracking did, right? Fracking set up, you know, new communities and new areas. The builders did phenomenally well. And then you can create that cheap housing, right?

You can buy.

Land that's relatively inexpensive, put up a decent size house at a reasonable cost. So I think that would be the only thing that kind of really excites me about housing is if this kind of process concept starts and you start getting new areas of growth where, hey, this is where the cobalt is, this is we're going to do the refining. Let's say it's a Mississippi does really well, OK.

How we can build houses in and around Mississippi that are affordable. I think that's what we're going to need to make housing exciting for me.

So it sounds not not to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you might be more optimistic in the housing market 20272028 than you are in 2026.

Yeah, I think that's fair. And you know, some smart people told me to look at Whirlpool that they think, you know, the Trump administration is going to get some, you know, good vibes going. And I I struggle to get there this year. Again, I think this uncertainty is just so high too, like no one's looking to make big expenditures.

I can tell you all walks of life, it doesn't matter who I'm talking to. Everyone's talking about their electricity bill right now. Electricity bill has become a topic of conversation from, you know, the taxi drivers all the way to the Country Club. It's something it's become very noticeable. I think it's only going to get worse before that gets better. So I I think things like that. When people are so wary of that, I don't see that you're gonna get this big home building type boom.

Yeah, all I heard in that Peter is continue to shop at Costco and Target. Not Target, TJX, TJX, so.

Exactly. And keep your lights off as much as possible, I guess.

Yeah, exactly. Turn that hot tub off. All right, Peter, anything we didn't talk about before we get out of here that we should?

No, I think, I think, you know, I still like Intel, I like AES, I like those companies. I I want to, I think invest in science from South America. There's an ETF, ILF that seems to try and focus on that. So I think one thing that we're going to have to be very good about this year is when we talk about emerging markets, I think there's emerging markets, Asia, emerging markets, Europe.

Africa and emerging markets, North, Central, South America. I'm very comfortable with Central, South America, emerging markets. Not sure what to do with China and that part of the world. And I want to, I think, dabble in Africa to the extent you can find investments there, because I think that could be the next part, right? Trump wants to be transactional. He will be transactional. I think he'll be more successful.

With Africa than we were under the Biden administration. So maybe there's some growth opportunity there. But I think when we talk emerging markets, I like Central and South America right now. I think they will be big beneficiaries of this policy. The one thing I would suggest too, the National Security Strategy paper, it's only 39 pages, double spaced. It's pretty easy to read.

Like it's actually like one of the few government things like you can actually read it quickly and it makes some sense and it tells you where we're headed. And so when we were talking about this pro SEC, I think if you're a corporation and you're trying to build, where do I build a new factory? I can build it in Asia where China's Navy is all over the place. We have less ability.

Or we can do it here in South or Central America or the USI think that's going to wave in like this importance of shipping. I think we're going to try and build shipbuilding back. So that's another area looking at. I think Brunswick could actually do pretty well in under this environment. So I think focus on U.S. companies that make stuff that we need.

Excellent. Excellent. Peter, we'll be talking more in 2026 than we did in 2025, so I look forward to continuing this dialogue as the landscape evolves. But in the meantime, folks can catch your writing over at the Street Pro. Where else can they find your stuff?

You can follow me on Twitter at TFMKTS, so kind of short for markets and also at academysecurities.com. We publish a bunch of our research up there so you can find some of it there. Some behind paywall, some's not. But yeah, it's going to be an exciting time. Appreciate the time and you know all the work you do too. I followed a lot of your advice too.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Peter Scheer, folks, head of macro strategy at Academy Securities. That's today's podcast. We'll be back shortly before you know it with a fresh episode.