Jun 7, 2026
Famed investor Michael Burry recently said the stock market’s heavy dependence on artificial intelligence today feels like “the last months of the 1999-2000 bubble.”
And he’s not alone. In early May, Paul Tudor Jones — an American billionaire hedge fund manager — told CNBC that he, too, had noticed today’s AI-fueled market looks quite similar to the dot-com bubble.
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Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett also agrees, and he’s got some evidence to back up the claim. As proof that the market is headed down an eerily similar path as the dot-com bubble from 26 years ago, Hartnett points to one of the most popular stock market indexes: the S&P 500.
Why Hartnett is concerned
On May 29, the final trading day of the month, the S&P 500 closed at a record of 7,580.06.
On that same date, 20 of the S&P 500’s stocks also managed to close at a record high — and of those 20 companies, only seven have no direct ties to AI. As CNBC reports, Hartnett observed in a research note after closing that, at the top of the dot-com bubble in March 2000, just 20 stocks had hit new all-time highs as well.
Hartnett did admit that “speculative price action” around AI is likely to continue, but this occurrence is another eerie sign that a dot-com bubble-type crash could be on the horizon.
The U.S. stock market saw incredible growth in May, a month in which numerous records were set as investors remained bullish on AI, as well as memory chip makers like SK Hynix, Micron Technology, Samsung and Advanced Micro Devices, CNBC reported. Micron Technology soared 88%, SK Hynix by 81%, AMD (46%) and Samsung (44%).
Such investing activity allowed the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index to jump 25% in April and May, its most successful two-month stretch in more than 20 years.
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Stock advances ‘have been extremely narrow’
Despite the market’s recent success, a number of financial strategists are concerned that a failure for this bull run to extend beyond AI and tech stocks could mark its end.
“Even though the U.S. and [emerging market] equity indexes have reached new highs, their advances have been extremely narrow,” states a May 20 report from BCA strategists, CNBC reports. “Poor breadth is often a sign of underlying stock market vulnerability.”
With the market showing signs that it’s on a concerning path, Hartnett said in his note that he’s now advising his clients to take on a more defensive position in the coming months.
“Post-bubble investor roadmap since 1929 is long bonds, and long combo of defensives and/or sectors which dramatically underperformed in the last months of the bubble,” he wrote.
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Chase is an Associate Editor for Wise Publishing. He formerly worked at Yahoo Canada as an editor on both the News and Sports teams.
