where are we in the .com bubble vs. today's AI rally? in the 90's, internet companies started a raging bull run it started mostly with infra companies like telcoms, semis, etc. their earnings grew w/ their valuations it wasn't until closer to the peak (97', 98', 99') when actual internet companies (the app layer) had their moment they didn't even start to IPO until Netscape in 95', then Yahoo in 96', then Amazon in 97' and then IPOs exploded in 98-2000 these companies grew in valuation, but their earnings didn't follow by the peak, the least profitable companies made up 12% of the S&P (this is normally between 2-4%) at this point the bubble popped and the S&P retraced by 50%, though still up more than 100% from earlier in the 90's today, the best performing stocks right now are the AI infrastructure stocks, like semis, compute, memory, energy, hyperscalers interestingly, the best performing stock in 94' was Micron Technology $MU, one of the best performing stocks of the last year too these companies earnings are growing alongside their valuations the app layer companies for AI mostly aren't public (Anthropic, xAI and OpenAI) similar to the mid 90s however in this instance their revenue is growing at an unprecedented rate (though to be fair, by no means profitable) of course no bubble or bull market is the same as the previous but if we compare, it appears that we might be closer to 95' then 2000 while the S&P has performed well recently, it's no different than most years since the great financial crisis, similar to the years before 95' just before things really took off the infra stocks are in a raging bull market, but so too are their earnings and there aren't enough pure play AI companies on the stock market (yet) to compare the frothiness of the internet companies from the late 90s so while many are suggesting it looks like we are in the AI version of the .com bubble, my response would be: you are probably right, but we're still likely in the very early days of that bull market i'm sure many of you disagree, interested to hear your thoughts below