The idea: take the day the modern internet got its consumer moment (Netscape Navigator 1.0, 15 December 1994) and the day AI got its consumer moment (ChatGPT, 30 November 2022), set the S&P 500 to 100 on each launch day, and overlay the two paths.
Explanation of the chart:
•We are on day 1,353 of the AI era. The S&P 500 is up 91% since ChatGPT launched. At the same point in the Netscape era, it was around +110% (the mid “crash” was +134% a month earlier). So, for all the bubble talk at the moment were currently lagging the dot-com bubble.
•The dot-com S&P didn’t top until day 1,926 (24th March 2000, +235%). Map that onto the current run you get March 2028, about 19 months from now. The Nasdaq’s top (day 1912, +591%), maps to February 2028. If this is the same situation and the analogy holds, the melt-up phase hasn’t even started. That’s the “we still have another year or two” argument, and on this chart it’s genuinely what the data shows.
•There is one missing thing, though. In the dot-com era, we had a holy f*ck it’s all over moment where the indexes had a heart attack on the way up (August – October 1998: LTCM, Russia default): the S&P fell −19%, the Nasdaq −30%, everyone declared the internet over. But then from there the Nasdaq went up 3x. But we have not really had that in 2026 yet. For the S&P, certainly not. Its drawdown has been only ~9%. The Nasdaq did have two repeated falls of ~+10% though, so I guess you can say the Nasdaq did mini heart attacks.
•Lastly, one stat for both bulls and bears. At day 1,353, the 90s Nasdaq was +124%; today’s +133% is fractionally ahead of the dot-com era. But the 90s line’s next move from here was a +591% move to the top… followed by -78% over the following two years.
Standard disclaimer. This is one historical analogy, not a law of physics. The Fed was cutting into 1998-1999; today we’re still discussing whether to hike. Today’s megacaps have real earnings; https://t.co/G7NvLJP9s5 had a sock puppet. Analogies rhyme right up until the exact moment that they don’t. My prediction record is 0 for everything and I’d like to keep it that way.
#aibubble #aibullrun #stocks