On this Motley Fool Money, Motley Fool analyst Nick Sciple and contributors Rick Munarriz and Jon Quast dive into the investing implications of the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. They also look at the bounce-back potential of Duolingo and Lululemon in 2026, as well as predictions for Disney in the coming year.
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A full transcript is below.
This podcast was recorded on Jan. 05, 2026.
Rick Munarriz: It's a small world after all. I promise this will make sense soon because Motley Fool Money starts now. I'm Rick Munarriz, and today I'm joined by fellow analysts Nick Sciple and Jon Quast. We're going to take a look at some potential bounce back candidates for 2026 and a look at Disney predictions heading into the New Year. But first, Venezuela. The big news over the weekend was the US capturing Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro and his wife, detaining them in the US to face charges of narcoterrorism, drug trafficking, and conspiracy. Nick, you are covering this story. We will obviously not be digging too deep into the political ramifications. That's not what we do here. But what are the biggest implications of this news for investors?
Nick Sciple: Certainly huge news geopolitically would argue this is the biggest US military commando operation, going back to the Bin Laden raid more than a decade ago for investors, for the business community, the big takeaway is what's going to happen with Venezuela's energy production? Venezuela has more proven reserves than Saudi Arabia yet produces less than 1% of global supply today. That's a trend of kind of withering infrastructure that's been going on for the past couple decades, first under the Hugo Chavez administration, and then under former president now Maduro. As I mentioned, Venezuela has over 300 billion barrels of proven reserves, about 17% of the global total, but production today, just 1% of global supply. In the late 1990s, Venezuela was producing 3.5 million barrels of oil per day today, now under $1 million a day. That's a 70% decline under the Chavez Maduro administrations. If you look disclosures from the national oil company of Venezuela. It's pipelines haven't been updated by some accounts, 50 years would need over $58 billion to rebuild those pipelines and by the reports of the administration, the US administration, part of what's going to happen after this regime change is an investment in that energy infrastructure. What becomes of Venezuela's oil production going forward? Can new investment return that trend to the growth that we saw in the late 90s?
Rick Munarriz: Yeah, so speaking of that growth and potential, who are the potential winners and losers from a comeback in Venezuelan energy production?
Nick Sciple: The big winners, jump off off the bat are the US oil majors. Chevron, the big one. They're the only US major currently operating in Venezuela, produces about 150,000 barrels a day. A 17% of Venezuela's overall output. Those other oil companies formerly operated in Venezuela. However, in the nationalization push, over a decade ago, lost some of their production, have some claims against the Venezuelan government to try to get some of those, back. Those big US oil companies, particularly Chevron, have the relationships, the infrastructure, the headstart to get underway in Venezuela. However, these are companies that were burned in the past under nationalization. They're going to want stability before they line up to spend big money on the investment needed to get production back in line. Any realistic timeline, we're looking three to five years before meaningful production increases take place. That's a long term, thesis. That said, to the extent that production can get back online, the losers here would be potentially Canadian oil producers. Venezuelans crude oil is very similar in grade to the oil that comes out of Canada's oil sands, that same heavy sour grade of oil that are used to produce things like diesel fuel in US Gulf Coast refineries. With that decline in Venezuelan oil production that I talked about earlier, Canadian producers have come fill that gap. Canada went from producing 2.7 million barrels a day exported to the US in 2013 up to 4.4 million barrels back in 2024. If those Venezuelan barrels come back online, that is direct competition for those Canadian oil producers and could put downward pressure on that production. But again, as I said, we would need several years of investment to get that production back online. These are all all one for one substitutions. A lot of this Canadian heavy oil gets piped directly to Midwestern refineries. The competition would be more for oil that goes to supply refineries on the Gulf Coast. But if, investment can get Venezuelan oil production back online, that would be direct competition for Canadian producers. That's why you've seen, the same way big US oil companies have moved up today on the news of what's going on in Venezuela, you've seen some real downward pressure on the Canadian producers.
Rick Munarriz: Speaking of the market, the initial market reaction, so the market tends to weaken when there's geopolitical crossfire, and that definitely happened over the weekend. The US markets initially moved higher on Monday. Why do you think that's the case beyond just the energy companies? General buoyant market?
Nick Sciple: I think the market was relieved to see there doesn't appear to be further kind of, you know, you mentioned crossfire. Your question, there wasn't any crossfire? There was only kind of fire going one direction for the most part, when you look at the casualties and the success of the operation. I think the market was relieved to see it appears this is the end of conflicts here. That is obviously far from certain, but I think that's what the market is saying here is that this is a one and done operation and that moving forward, we should see more stability and perhaps, more investment in Venezuela, which would be good for the global economy.
Rick Munarriz: I was surprised to see key Latin American stocks moving higher on the news, since, you know, they may potential targets if things, keep escalating. Longtime rule breaker recommendation by Calide was up 10%, just 2 hours before the close today. Does that make sense to you?
Nick Sciple: Potentially, Venezuela's economy can get back on track, huge opportunity for Mercado Libre and other e-commerce players in the industry. Currently, Venezuela, less than 5% of Mercado Libre's revenue, but there's more than 30 million people in Venezuela, and this has been bordering on a failed state for the better part of a decade. No e-commerce infrastructure. You follow Mercado Libre more than me, but it's been a recurring thing on the earnings calls of If you back out Venezuela, we're doing pretty good. Can you imagine if Venezuela turns from a headwind to a tailwind for Mercado Libre? This is a company that you saw what happened when Argentina got back on track under a new administration. That became a tailwind for the business. So I think folks are optimistic about Venezuela going from being a real laggard in the South American economy to being something that can be a tailwind for further growth. If that's the case, then, Mercado Libre won't be the only company benefiting from that.
Rick Munarriz: Excellent. Jon, let's bring you into the mix. As an investor. What's your takeaway from the situation?
Jon Quast: As everything that just Nick just said, the arrow is pointing in a positive direction for various perspectives, especially going back to Mercado Libre. One of the big reasons it has struggled in Venezuela is because of currency debasement. That currency just keeps going down. It's hard to do business in that environment. So pointing toward stabilization, that is good. Long term. I think it's a little bit premature to say that we're already there, that Mercado Libre and others are already going to enjoy that benefit. It's going to take a long time to play out if it ever does. I think that probably the market is going to get a little bit impatient, because it does tend to overreact both positively and negatively. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw that, but I definitely understand what it's seeing and why it's having a positive outlook, and I think it's right. If we see stabilization in Venezuela, that's a good thing for some of these businesses.
Rick Munarriz: Thank you, Jon, and Nick, thank you for your expertise on this. Ultimately, a big story to kick off the New Year. The world and its investors will be watching. Coming up next, can some of last year's losers be big winners? Let's see if two out of favor stocks can have monster makeovers in 2026.
Last year was a good one for investors, but not for all investors. Jon and I took a look at two rule breakers that fell hard last year. We think they can bounce back this year. I went with Lululemon, but you went with Duolingo, Jon. What's going on with Duolingo?
Jon Quast: Duolingo ticker symbol DUOL stock was down 46% in 2025, Rick, and down 67% from its highs in 2025. Losing two thirds of its value and some variety of factors going on. But one of the big headline grabbing things was when ChatGPT did a demonstration where essentially a homegrown version of Duolingo could be just created with some prompts in the app. I think that that caused investors to say, "Does this company have a durable competitive advantage or am I just going to learn a new language from something that I create on my own in a chat bot with using generative AI?" so we see the stock price pulling way way back. The CEO of this company, Luis von Ahn, he would say "Take the longview", and I think that that's right. There's many reasons why I think that this can bounce back in 2026.
Rick Munarriz: Especially, it's been just such a big winner before this year, this past year, 2025, and clearly a stock that had a lot of momentum, but business that's still growing. I'm with you on Duolingo. But I went with Lululemon. Lululemon has had a very rough downward facing dog kind of year in 2025. It basically all you have to do is follow the sales. Sales This company in the Athleisure market and the upscale yoga ware market was doing so well for a long time and then just basically stumbled. Over the past couple of quarters, comps in the Americas, in the US, rather, have been negative, company that's been traditially growing, and while it's doing well internationally and in other markets like Canada in the US, it's sort of struggling, which is still its largest market. But I do like it here. I was at Fool Fest 25 a few months ago, wearing Lululemon pants that I had gotten from my American Express platinum card because they are now having a free $75 credit you can use every quarter. I did it to mock Lululemon. At the time I was sort of bearish when I was making that presentation, I'm saying, "Look at 50 something old guy wearing Lululemon pants on camera". I'm probably, hurting the brand by doing this. But in the process, I had a very comfortable pair of pants on that evening. Since then, I use my December credit. I have some friends that are Lululemon fans and didn't know about the credit, now they're using it. To me, my mind has done a full 180 on this, where I thought, I thought, when American Express, when their platinum card has a credit, $50 Saks credit every six months, you can expect bad news, as you see, Sachs is now almost struggling financially right now. In this case, even though it may seem desperate for Lululemon to reach for something like this for this kind of big discount being offered, I think it could help. I am with Lululemon, and there's activism is happening, but I think organically, it'll be able to fix itself in 2026, very attractively priced after the markdown. Doc that I think will bounce back.
Jon Quast: Rick, I love the point that you're making here because I think that with a brand like Lululemon, the argument is against it that maybe it's losing its brand power, maybe it's losing its luster. But you look at the numbers. Revenue is still at an all time high, and its operating margin at 22%. To me, this is not indicative of a business that is losing that brand power in a material way, at least not right now. It hasn't manifested yet. I think that it is overblown, the concerns that it has, a slowdown, a headwind here and there. But I think you're right. This is a stock that is poised to bounce back in the coming year.
Rick Munarriz: Doing well internationally. I keep thinking to, Crocs, which has been a disappointing stock lately. But there were time when the US everyone just figured, Crocs are done, and International started to take off, and then celebrity started to hop on Crock, and then it happens. It bounced back for a while. But that's it for that. Coming up next, it's a small world after all. Let's take a look at some predictions for Disney in 2026.
Disney World did not have a good year last year. The stock was up 3%, losing to the market in 2025. It's had a few rough years. I was covering the company earlier this week. I know it's Monday, but earlier over the weekend and published earlier on Monday. I had four Disney predictions. Jon, I know you and I, we follow these Florida companies, so we know Disney and Nick, if you have some thoughts, go ahead and share them. But I want to quickly go over these four predictions that I have, and you guys tell me if you think yes or no, if you think it'll happen. The first is Disney will announce an internal CEO this year, and argument for that is that this is a company that Bob Iger has said he's going to step down at the end of this year. The board has already said they're going to announce the next successor early in 2026 to avoid what happened back in 2020, during the Bob Chapek handoff. But I do think that Disney will announce an internal CEO, even though the stock has failed to beat the market in four of the last five years because the company's still doing well. It's a company very complicated company with a lot of moving parts. I think they will hire internally. I don't know who it'll be, but I don't think they're going to seek an outside CEO. Any thoughts?
Nick Sciple: Yeah, the rumors are that the head of the Parks division seems to be in pole position to, win that job. Obviously, there's been three names kicked around. The parks are a, trophy asset. Still took you mentioned the parks had a tough year in 2025. Still was able to take up price in the fall. It's an example of a company that has almost infinite pricing power. If you told folks five years ago that the Disney World prices would be where they are today and that the lines would still be out the door to get in, this is an example of a company that can just take up price whenever they want to, and their willingness to do so, reflects that they know that their asset is one that is globally, people are willing to pay whatever it takes to be a part of that.
Rick Munarriz: Mark, thank you, Nick. My second prediction for Jon Nick, anyone who has thoughts. I will stay out of the media buying frenzy. It did that in 2025. We saw Paramount get bought up in the summer. Obviously, the year ended with Warner Brothers Discovery and a bidding war, eventually go to Netflix. I think they're just gonna They were not an active bidder, at least not a prominent bidder in I think they're gonna continue to stay out of buying assets. They already have enough stuff in their arsenal thoughts on that.
Jon Quast: I couldn't agree more with you, Rick, because what more does Disney need? The intellectual property library that it has at its disposal, there's so many options that it has just because of how vast it already is. Plus, its size, what are you going to acquire that's going to materially move the needle? It's going to be a lot of money. I don't think that's a path that Disney wants to go. Definitely, it's in the mode of Let's do a lot with what we already have. I think that the Mandalorian is a great example of what it can do with a franchise when it has a really good story to tell. I think it's going to run that playbook.
Nick Sciple: If anything, I would expect Disney to be a seller of assets. We were talking about before we hopped on the call, would not be surprised to see ESPN spun out of Disney, whether it's next year or a few years down the road, the head of ESPN Jimmy Petaro was one of the names kicked around as potential Disney CEO? We haven't had the final CEO announced. Looks like he's not gonna be the choice. They have been expanding their assets back in this fall, when they took over NFL network. There's been all this conversation of what's next for ESPN, and I think what could be next for ESPN is a life as an independent company.
Rick Munarriz: My third prediction was Disney will have this year's biggest movie. And this is almost cheating, but it wasn't when I look back. Disney had the highest grossing movies worldwide in 2024. It had three of four in 2025. The other one was a Chinese movie. Out of the US studios, there's only been six movies that have grossed more than $1 billion in tickets in 2024 to 25. Disney put out all of them. I'm basically saying, as any Marvel fan knows, Avengers Doomsday comes out in December of this year, and I think it's pretty much a lot, just like Avatar this year in 2025. I think it's pretty much a lot to be the biggest movie. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on that. If not, we can move on to the fourth prediction.
Jon Quast: There weren't many movies that came up on the slate that even could give it a run for its money, really. I mean, Christopher Nolan is going to have the Odyssey coming out later this year. But you know what the trailer wasn't great. I don't see a lot of buzz for it. The Hunger Games come out, Dune. Those are the only ones I see that could potentially challenge the crown, but I don't think that they will succeed. I think you're right. Disney gets it.
Rick Munarriz: My fourth one is Disney will beat the market in 2026. This is a stock that has actually lost to the market in four of the last five years, very disappointing 3% gain last year in a year when media stocks were soaring on takeover news. But I do see the stock is attractively priced. Forward earnings multiple in the mid teens. It is projected to grow its earnings at a double digit pace. All since its streaming business turned profitable in fiscal 2024, revenue growth is still slow, but I think the more efficient Disney that we're going to be seeing in the next few years is enough to get investors excited in the company again. Thoughts on that.
Jon Quast: It's not unprecedented, Rick. That's for sure. You can have a low growth company that turns it around on the margin profile and does well as a stock. One example I'll give from 2025 is Dollar General. It didn't put up much top line growth, but it had the profit margin improvement and was a solid, solid performing stock in 2025. I'm personally pretty lukewarm when it comes to Disney stock outlook, but I see your point that it doesn't have to put up a ton of top line growth in order to be a good stock for the coming year and beyond.
Rick Munarriz: Toy Story five is coming out, so to infinity and beyond. We'll close on that, Jon. Well done. Jon and Nick, thank you for indulging me today. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. See our full advertising disclosures, please check our show notes. For Jon Quast, Nick Sciple and the entire Motley Fool Money team, I'm Rick Munarriz. May your days be sunny and your life Motley Fool Money. Jon
