5 Charts From Goldman Sachs Show How AI Mania Compares to 2000 & 2021

NYSE trader blowing a bubble with bubble gum

2026-06-11T14:08:44.396Z

AI bubble fears are back in the market conversation as chip stocks plummet and as trillions worth of AI market cap is about to come to market in the form of IPOs from SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI.

But vibes are one thing; how does the current AI mania stack up on paper against some of the great bubbles of the past?

In a note to clients earlier this month, Goldman Sachs compared today's stock market to peaks in 2021 and 2000 on nine metrics.

The bank's conclusion is that while investors are more bullish than average today, they're probably not quite in the same realm as those two market tops.

Evaluating nine bubble metrics, Goldman found that today's median historic percentile rank among them is in the 86th percentile. In 2021, the median was the 95% percentile, and in 2000 it was the 100th percentile.

Here are five metrics Goldman flagged.

Stock market momentum

Momentum looks at the rate of change in stock prices — how quickly and how robustly share prices move up.

Goldman's three-month momentum indicator is up 27% as of last week, one of its higher levels in market history.

But the bank isn't particularly worried about it.

"Sharp Momentum factor rallies with the equity market near highs have historically boded poorly for subsequent S&P 500 returns, with comparable previous examples including late 1999 and late 2021," said Ben Snider, the bank's chief US equity strategist.

"However, in contrast with previous episodes, the recent rally has been driven primarily by surging near-term earnings estimates," he continued. "Consensus forward S&P 500 EPS estimates have risen by 16% YTD, outpacing the 8% price return for the index, with the strongest revisions occurring among the high Momentum stocks."

Market breadth

Stock market breadth, or the percentage of stocks participating in the rally, is another metric Goldman examined. While it's at its lowest level going back to 2000, it's still not as low as it got at the dot-com peak.

Goldman calculates breadth here by "the distance of the aggregate S&P 500 Index from its 52-week high and the distance of the median S&P 500 constituent from its 52-week high."

Speculative trading

Goldman's speculative trading indicator — which measures trading volume in penny and unprofitable stocks — is still far off from the 2021 and 2000 peaks.

AAII Investor Sentiment

The American Association of Individual Investors' bull-bear indicator, which looks at the spread between bullish and bearish investors for the next six months, shows investors are nowhere near as bullish as they were in 2000 and 2021. Investors today are actually net bearish.

Yale Stock Market Confidence Index

Interestingly, Yale's measure of investor sentiment shows levels of exuberance comparable to those of the two prior bubble periods.

It measures how confident investors are to buy dips in the market relative to how confident they are that stocks are fairly valued — showing that right now, investors want to buy dips even though they think valuations are higher than they should be, the bank said.