Selling picks and shovels during a gold rush still pays — but whether the miners strike gold is another story. Our modern-day outfitter, Nvidia, posted blockbuster earnings that should’ve sent Wall Street into celebration mode. Instead, the stock surged 5% in early trading before the party died down and surrendered every gain to close down 3% yesterday. As it turns out, fears of an AI bubble remain in the room with us, and not even strong results from Nvidia can ease them.
The market had other plans: During his earnings call, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang pushed back hard against bubble talk, arguing that AI is fundamentally transforming infrastructure across data processing, search, and engineering. “There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” Huang said. “From our vantage point we see something very different.” After the earnings report, Barclays boosted its 2026 S&P 500 forecast to 7.4K from 7K and called AI “the most important macro factor in 2026.”
- Barclays believes total AI-related investment by hyperscalers and smaller companies could reach 10% of US GDP by 2029 — but the sustainability of that spending pace doesn’t look certain.
- Despite the optimism, it warned that a 30% fall in equity valuations would trigger a $15T hit to households holding $45T–$47T in equities, potentially triggering a recession.
The Bears Are Done Hibernating
Big Tech’s AI spending binge has reached eye-watering levels, with no clear timeline for when these massive investments will actually generate profits. The latest Bank of America survey of fund managers overseeing $500B in assets revealed that a net 20% now believe companies are overinvesting — marking the first time since 2005 that this view has dominated. More than 50% of those surveyed said AI stocks are already in bubble territory, with 45% calling it the biggest tail risk to markets and the economy.
- Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio admitted “we are definitely in a bubble,” while DoubleLine Capital’s Jeffrey Gundlach called this “one of the least healthy” stock markets of his career and urged investors to hold 20% cash.
- Klarna founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who holds stakes in OpenAI and other AI firms, said he’s “very nervous” about trillion-dollar data center investments, warning the spending may not be worth it.
The sleeper risk: Wall Street is growing concerned that Big Tech’s investment in AI data centers may curb the pace of corporate buybacks next year, removing a major pillar of demand that has helped keep stock prices high. Now analysts are warning that a pullback — along with the risk of fewer-than-expected Fed rate cuts — could pressure stocks. And if Nvidia can’t save the market from this, then it definitely can’t save us if consumer spending doesn’t pick up and unemployment rates don’t stabilize.