A top Wall Street analyst has sounded an alarm over the U.S. equity bull market, warning that its remarkable run is built on a precariously narrow foundation: a surge in spending on, and optimistic assumptions about, infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI). This spending has fueled a boom in the shares of most of the so-called Magnificent 7 and a few dozen related businesses, which have now come to account for roughly 75% of the S&P 500’s returns since the rally of the last few years began.
The commentary on September 29 by Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s chief investment officer, Lisa Shalett, frames the current market boom as a “one-note narrative” almost entirely dependent on massive capital expenditures in generative AI, raising questions about its durability as economic and competitive risks start to mount. Shalett’s critique came squarely in the middle of some people in the AI field — and many financial commentators around Wall Street —fretting at market exuberance and beginning to talk openly about a bubble.
