About this episode

The episode discusses the geopolitical and economic events at the start of 2026, focusing on market impacts and housing affordability issues in the U.S.

We look at the eventful start to 2026 and try to put some context around potential market impacts. Geopolitically, we saw the renewed vigor of the Monroe Doctrine in full force with U.S. action against Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro. Whether stemming the flow of drugs or increasing the supply of oil was the primary factor is undetermined, though decades of underinvestment in infrastructure make any meaningful near-term effect on oil supply unlikely; lower oil prices have been one of the few things keeping inflation in check. We also discuss saber rattling as it relates to Greenland, whose strategic location has perhaps been underappreciated, and Iran, where citizen protests are increasingly being met by violence. Affordability has been top of mind for the electorate, and the Administration, and we have seen presidential social media posts on housing and credit card interest rates. Though executive power has increased, barring institutions from buying single-family homes and capping credit card interest at 10% seems to have little likelihood of actually being implemented. However, housing affordability is a huge problem; according to Apollo: 54 million households can only afford a…

People in this episode

Hosts: Will Brown, Adam Eagleston

Topics covered

• market impacts
• geopolitics
• housing affordability
• oil supply
• inflation
• U.S. policy

Keywords

• Monroe Doctrine
• oil prices
• housing market
• credit card interest
• inflation
• U.S. administration

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Apollo

Places: Venezuela, Greenland, Iran

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