The AI Bubble’s Most Terrifying Bull Is Gearing Up

When it comes to AI, it’s a strong echo to the dotcom boom.

Nvidia, the poster child for the necessary hardware behind AI systems, is akin to that of router manufacturer Cisco.

Cisco shares soared thousands of percentage points in the 1990s, only to collapse once everyone had a PC connected to the internet.

Where exactly are we today in terms of a similar move? In a way, 2025 has looked much like 1998 – early into the bubble, but not quite at the blow-off top.

Financial markets, particularly the Nasdaq, are eerily lining up:

Turn Your Images On

The Nasdaq is following the dotcom rally of the 1990s to a T since the launch of ChatGPT (Source: Barchart)

Looking at how the Nasdaq is soaring since the launch of ChatGPT and overlaying it with the performance following the release of Netscape, the first commercial web browser, it’s another sign that AI is just an updated version of the dotcom boom.

Don’t be surprised if this time it ends the same way – a blow-off top ahead, playing into our Most Terrifying Bull Market thesis – before it all comes down.

For now, there’s still some money to be made. By the time everyone’s looking to ignore the fact that it’s a bubble and marginal buyers are all-in, it won’t take much to reverse course.

~ Addison

P.S.: While today’s chart suggests we’re closer to 1997 than 2000, remember, there were some steep pullbacks along the way during the dotcom boom:

The collapse of the “Asian Tiger” economies, the collapse of LTCM, rising concerns over Y2K…

Don’t chase this rally. Use healthy pullbacks to buy strong, industry-leading companies. Keep stacking gold and bitcoin. When worse comes to worst, you’ll come out just fine.

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

When it comes to AI, it’s a strong echo to the dotcom boom.

Nvidia, the poster child for the necessary hardware behind AI systems, is akin to that of router manufacturer Cisco.

Cisco shares soared thousands of percentage points in the 1990s, only to collapse once everyone had a PC connected to the internet.

Where exactly are we today in terms of a similar move? In a way, 2025 has looked much like 1998 – early into the bubble, but not quite at the blow-off top.

Financial markets, particularly the Nasdaq, are eerily lining up:

Turn Your Images On

The Nasdaq is following the dotcom rally of the 1990s to a T since the launch of ChatGPT (Source: Barchart)

Don’t be surprised if this time it ends the same way – a blow-off top ahead, playing into our Most Terrifying Bull Market thesis – before it all comes down.

For now, there’s still some money to be made. By the time everyone’s looking to ignore the fact that it’s a bubble and marginal buyers are all-in, it won’t take much to reverse course.

~ Addison

P.S.: While today’s chart suggests we’re closer to 1997 than 2000, remember, there were some steep pullbacks along the way during the dotcom boom:

The collapse of the “Asian Tiger” economies, the collapse of LTCM, rising concerns over Y2K…

Don’t chase this rally. Use healthy pullbacks to buy strong, industry-leading companies. Keep stacking gold and bitcoin. When worse comes to worst, you’ll come out just fine.

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

SoftBank offloaded its entire $5.83 billion Nvidia stake to bankroll an even bigger gamble: tens of billions in OpenAI.

Son insists this is his next Vision Fund moment.

OpenAI’s swelling valuation doubled SoftBank’s profit last quarter. He may have sold the pickaxe factory, but he’s betting the mine still goes deeper.

Although consumer debt is at an all-time high, consumers themselves got the message during the last crisis: Pay down debt, own more assets.

That’s taken the U.S. household debt-to-asset ratio to levels last seen in the 1970s, around the time the U.S. went off the gold standard.

A 50-year mortgage doesn’t make housing cheaper. But by stretching the repayment period over time, it DOES lower the monthly payment on your principal. That lowers the percentage of your total income you’re spending on repayment. And in a strange way, it makes sense.

With a fixed rate mortgage and inflation running in the high upper digits, the real value you of your total debt goes down over time (inflation pays off your loan, as long as your income rises faster in nominal terms). Of course you pay off a lot more interest over 50 years than 30 years. And it takes a lot longer to build up equity (assuming also that house prices don’t fall).

Last night’s 60–40 Senate vote shoved the government back toward “on.” There’s apparently a shutdown truce… for now.

A bloc of Democrats “crossed the aisle” after weeks of getting nowhere on health-care demands. “We had no path forward… and SNAP beneficiaries were losing benefits,” Sen. Tim Kaine, one of the 7 who conveniently aren’t up for reelection, said.

The new deal funds Washington only through January, tacks on three bills to keep parts of Defense, Ag, and the Capitol complex humming through 2026, reverses shutdown-era RIFs, and restores back pay.

The House is next; the president says he’ll sign it fast when it gets to the Oval Office.