Hooper, the firm's chief market strategist, views the rise in long-term bond yields as a symptom of fiscal unsustainability rather than purely robust economic growth. With the U.S. government diverting an increasing share of its federal budget to cover interest payments, she remains skeptical of the country's ability to lower its deficit-to-GDP ratio. This environment, she notes, makes traditional fixed-income strategies riskier than they were just a few years ago.

The strategist suggests that the Federal Reserve faces an uphill battle against inflation driven by supply-side shocks—such as geopolitical conflicts, tariffs, and capital-heavy AI infrastructure investments—which are notoriously difficult to manage through interest rate adjustments alone. Because these factors threaten to push the economy toward stagflation, she advises investors to move beyond concentrated stock positions. Hard assets like commodities and gold, which have historically served as hedges during inflationary cycles, are central to her recommended defensive stance. Hooper emphasizes that with headline inflation potentially far from its peak, the primary objective for portfolios should be resilience against multiple, unpredictable economic outcomes.