Investing right now takes care and patience, Peter Tchir believes. A lot of patience.
The new administration is aggressively pursuing policies that may not work. Inflation pressures will probably increase, and the United States has some fences to mend.
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Tchir would like to see the administration succeed and was optimistic about its prospects three months ago. Now, not so much.
Tchir, head of Macro Strategy at Academy Securities of San Diego and a contributor to theStreet Pro, joined Chris Versace in a conversation about markets and stocks on theStreet Pro’s new Stocks & Markets podcast.
Versace is lead portfolio manager of TheStreet Pro Portfolio.
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You can watch the new podcast, called “Sell the Rips/Buy the Dips” here.
Tchir, is a 30-year Wall Street veteran who was raised in Canada and works at Academy’s New York office. He first specialized in investing in credit, and he’s been involved in $1 trillion in credit deals.
His job now, he says quickly, is not “to be the thousandth person saying ‘buy high yield or sell high yield.'”
Rather it’s to look for — and articulate — an appropriate narrative of what’s happening in markets and why.
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What Trump wants
Right now, the markets’ overall narrative boils down to a focus on what Donald Trump wants his legacy to be, Tchir said.
“I’m pretty convinced he really wants his legacy to be a much more robust, stronger middle class.” Getting there means “deficit reduction and bringing jobs back to America.”
But Tchir is not sure the strategy that seems to be at work is going to deliver on jobs, and Trump “clearly believes very much in tariffs,” an impediment to bringing jobs back.
Tchir thought the administration’s geopolitical strategy should emphasize isolating China, investing in new chip technologies and maybe start rebuilding the U.S. Navy. And, to his dismay, there’s way too little focus and little appreciation for the time it takes to negotiate trade deals.
There’s a big difference between tariffs and trade deals, he noted.
The loss of the American brand?
But there have been self-created problems that affect the Administration and markets. These include:
Isolating traditional U.S. allies by his handling of the Ukraine-Russia War. Making overtures to buy Greenland and make Canada part of the United States. Neither Greenland nor Canada likes the idea. “I am Canadian,” Tchir said “but the 51st state stuff was funny about the first 1,000 times.”Rather than a focus on U.S. exports in services, the administration has emphasized deficits in goods. “I think that’s short sighted.” U.S. services exports (banking, insurance and the like) are huge and vitally important
So, the Administration has pushed friends away, and Tchir said he’s concerned about “damage to the American brand.” In the days of the old Soviet Union, “Levis represented freedom.”
Maybe not now. Even Tesla (TSLA) has lost its luster.
Cargo ships load and unload foreign trade containers at Qingdao Port in Shandong province, China, in April.
The China issue
Perhaps the rhetoric will get toned down, maybe the tariff hawks will be moved out of the limelight, and a more constructive set of relationships will develop, he hopes.
But that’s not Tchir’s base case.
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The base case he uses now is more economic slowing and higher overall prices. Ford Motor Co. (F) said Thursday that sticker prices will be pushed higher in May or June unless there’s tariff relief.
A slowdown will force the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates sooner than it might want.
That might satisfy President Trump, who wants a more pliant Fed.
The bigger problem is China, he says, which came into 2025 much better more prepared to take on the United States commercially and maybe militarily than the United States was prepared to take on China.
It shouldn’t surprise that China’s government told its airlines not to take delivery of more Boeing (BA) jets this year other than the 18 already delivered.
(Boeing has been the United States’ largest exporter and is trying to recover crashes of two 737-Max jets and a near-disaster when a door fell out of a 737-Max in January 2024. The shares are off 11.3% from their 2025 high of $182.59 on March 25.)
Where Tchir might invest now
Tchir did not mention specific stocks. But he likes:
Utilities because of the growth in data centers.Big industrials, like farm-equipment makers. Logistics companies and construction companies. Energy. He’d buy shares in that sector on big price dips.
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