Fundstrat’s Hardika Singh Weighs In
Investing, outlooks, and where to focus for 2026
Last week, I got the opportunity to sit down with Hardika Singh, an economic strategist at Fundstrat focusing on macro research.
It is hard for me to convey how excited I was for this conversation. Hardika and I met a few months ago and her work is absolutely impeccable. She puts out some of the best coverage in the industry… It is no wonder the GOAT, Tom Lee, would want to have an asset like her at Fundstrat.
In a previous life, Hardika wrote for Bloomberg and was a markets reporter at WSJ. Now, she writes daily for Fundstrat while studying for her CFA Level II Exam.
Before we jump into our conversation, I want to make sure everyone is able to follow Hardika on socials. Here is her X account and here is her LinkedIn.
When I got the chance to sit down with Hardika, we dove into a bunch of different topics. As a young professional herself, I think a lot of what she said will resonate with all of you. She was even nice enough to outline some of the biggest potential headwinds the market faces in 2026.
To follow along, I have italicized all of Hardika’s words, with my questions bolded. Here is how our conversation went:
Cliff: “I’d love to get a little insight as to who you are, how you got your start and what really made you interested in markets. Was there this pivotal moment when you realized you wanted to study and write about markets?”
Hardika: “Growing up in India, I never thought I would do anything related to markets. When I was 17, I left India to study in America and when you’re young, you believe you can tackle anything, you can become anyone. Then you get hit with the reality of so many obstacles in your way. So, I went to journalism school and quickly realized that there were not many jobs as a journalist throughout the country. But I noticed that business journalism is actually one of those rare industries where there are always jobs. So, I leaned into that. By a stroke of luck, I got an internship at Bloomberg. I had to do it remotely during 2020, which wasn’t my favorite, but I was so glad to have gotten that internship. It was only then, at Bloomberg, that I realized that there was this whole world I didn’t know of… The financial world. It’s been years since then but that internship brought the markets into my life. Now I am studying for CFA Level II and constantly learning new things. The amount of things you can learn in the world of finance is crazy.”
Cliff: “And that led you to Fundstrat! Did you know of Fundstrat prior to joining?”
Hardida: “I used to get Fundstrat’s notes as a reporter at WSJ. I kind of knew what they were thinking about markets, I knew their reputation on the street and I was like, I know this firm… I can do this job. Let me have this job, I know I am going to have this job.”
Cliff: “I love that, what an incredible origin story. So with that, I’d love to know what investment principles you keep near and dear to yourself. Is there anything that drives your research or your personal investments?”
Hardika: “Being a reporter had trained me to look at anything with skepticism. Especially when we have periods of exuberance in the markets, we’re trained to question that. So, when I was reporting, I felt this bearish skew towards markets. Moving over to Fundstrat was a huge shift for me because Tom Lee’s typically bullish, even after many things go wrong, he tends to root himself in bullishness. I used to think valuations mattered a lot. They don’t. They don’t matter at all. I know some people really care about them but to me, they are just one tool to help gauge whether to buy or sell something. But by no means was it ever meant to be a North Star in making investment decisions. When you have supercycles like AI, you don’t want to be focused too heavily on valuations because this is so far out in the future. If you think about valuations, you’re going to miss out. And that’s why I think since working at Fundstrat, I’ve started leaning more toward the way Tom Lee thinks: being bullish because historically, stocks outperform just about everything else. And if stocks fall in a short amount of time, that’s a contrarian indicator… they’re going to go back up just as much.”
Cliff: “Awesome. Most of my readers know that I am a long-term optimist when it comes to markets. Now, when you think of allocating your own money to markets, what does this mean to you? Some people are nervous about investing, some have an easier time, how do you practice delayed gratification?”
Hardika: “That’s a profound and deep question. For me it comes down to financial freedom. I saw the effects of delayed gratification through my parents. They invested in real estate, gold, silver, very traditional Indian parent methodology, you know? Their investments empowered me to go to school abroad, which was a huge plus. When I started investing myself, after I got my first job, my little pile of investments slowly grew bigger and bigger. Now, I’m sitting at this comfortable number. Sometimes I don’t even believe it, but it gives me a sense of freedom that if I want to stop working before retirement hits, it’s now potentially an option.”
Cliff: “What is one thing that you tell yourself when the market gets volatile? Not necessarily what you say in the research you publish, but to yourself regarding your own investments? When you looked at your portfolio during April’s tariff tantrum, what did you think?”
Hardika: “I had just opened a fun brokerage account a month before that. I told myself I was going to dollar-cost average and that I wouldn’t touch it no matter what happens. A month later, it started tanking. At first, I thought there was no way this was happening to me. Ultimately, I told myself that if it was going down that quickly, it was a good buying opportunity. I straight up thought to myself, when else am I going to find an opportunity like this? During 2022, I had missed out on big dips such as Meta being down over 60%. Why didn’t I buy that? So, this time around, I told myself I was going to buy big-time. If it’s volatile again this year, that’s just another great buying opportunity. Buy low, sell high.”
Cliff: “I love that framework. For financial professionals, it can be just as hard for us to allocate as it is for anyone else. Now, given you do a lot of research and writing, what are some things you anticipate for 2026?”
Hardika: “I think it’s going to be a very volatile year. We have so many things up in the air and yes, typically if there’s uncertainty in the recent years we have seen it doesn’t have much of an impact on the stock market. But there seem to be higher stakes this year. For example, the Supreme Court tariffs decision, what happens with that? Anyone’s guess. And if they say no, what is the administration’s plan to get tariffs? It’s a very interesting situation because last year tariffs were like the worst thing in the world. Everybody was dreading them, everybody was panicking, pulling out of the market, calling it the end of the America trade. And now we’re kind of in this other seat where we’re like, oh, we need tariffs to keep the market rally going. We’re actually collecting a lot of money out of this. This is great. And I think that eventually once we do get some clarity there, markets can push and rally. But it’s hard for the markets right now to try to continue with this uptrend for a long time. We’ve had a great start to the year. But I think that for it to continue in a meaningful manner, we need to get some clarity regarding the Supreme Court tariff decision. The Fed chair pick too. I think we haven’t seen any impact on the market in a meaningful way from the Fed chair pick being dovish, it’s a really strange situation because I feel like theoretically it’s a worrying thing, right? You want to have the Fed be completely objective, be completely independent, but the market is not on the same page about that, at least from the bets we’re seeing in the bond market. So those are some of the big things I’m thinking about. I think we will get some clarity on those things. By the end of the year we should have a good rally. But until then there might be some pain. And personally speaking as an investor, I would buy, you know, I would buy the dip.”
Cliff: “I love it. This is a great objective take and outlines the potential headwinds the markets may face throughout 2026. With that, I wanted to ask one last question. Was there something we spent too much time paying attention to throughout 2025 that never materialized?”
Hardika: “I think we paid, all of us entirely paid too much attention to DOGE and its promises. And it’s crazy that it was just last year because we almost forgot. It’s like we forgot that happened last year because it was such a mess. It was like watching a dumpster fire. I think the idea of it was very alluring. Cutting waste out of the government and getting that money to pay down our debt or like, at least put it towards projects and things that we want our economy to have. We didn’t grow because of it. We didn’t decline because of it. And the debt picture mostly is unchanged. I think looking back in hindsight, the idea of DOGE was like putting a band aid on this gunshot wound of the fiscal debt crisis that we have going on, rather than like an actual solution to it. So, that was something I feel like all of us paid a little bit too much attention to. And I’ve seen reports that pointed out a lot of the waste that they allegedly cut out from the government were actually inflated numbers or numbers that were not verified.”
Cliff: “Wow, I had almost completely forgotten of the DOGE efforts. We definitely spent a ton of time focusing on how that was going to reduce tons of waste. What is one narrative you think young investors don’t need to pay attention to throughout 2026?”
Hardika: “The second thing that I think young investors should completely ignore this year, it kind of goes back to thinking about your investment journey in very, very long terms. You know, most likely all of us will have a 60 year investing journey. Do you really want to be worried about an AI bubble in your 20s? No. You don’t. Doesn’t matter. Because even if we have some of the biggest contractions, which I’m not saying will happen, but even if you have a huge contraction in the stock market or we have a recession, eventually in 60 years it should go back up. And if it doesn’t, then we have bigger problems. The earth no longer exists. So, I think that all this AI bubble is overhyped. It’s natural to be worried, especially if you’re an older investor because they are so leveraged in stocks right now, more so than they ever have been by some metrics. But for younger investors, it doesn’t make sense to focus too much on that because your investing journey is so long, it’s not going to matter that much at the end of the day.”
Thank you to Hardika for such an awesome interview. She had some amazing insights as we make our way into 2026 and hearing her own experiences in investing is so meaningful. Please be sure to follow her work on LinkedIn. She is going to have a killer year.
*Hardika Singh is employed by Fundstrat Global Advisors, LLC and her views are solely her opinion. This newsletter does not constitute an endorsement of Fundstrat by Bone Fide Wealth.
Disclosures: https://fsinsight.com/disclosures/hardika-singh/
This is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal or investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security or strategy. The investment strategy and themes discussed herein may be unsuitable for investors depending on their specific investment objectives and financial situation. Opinions expressed in this commentary reflect subjective judgments of the author and his guest based on conditions at the time of publication and are subject to change without notice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.