There are little 'bubbles' everywhere — but they haven't broken the stock market

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Call it a market of micro-manias.

From AI spending to crypto, gold, fake meat to donuts, and even margin debt, pockets of froth are bubbling up across financial markets. But unlike past boom-and-bust cycles, today’s excesses haven’t punctured the broader rally — at least not yet.

Ed Yardeni, market veteran and president of Yardeni Research, calls it “a bubble in fears of bubbles,” arguing that the “everything bubble” never materialized.

Instead, he sees dozens of mini-manias across speculative assets, meme trades, and now data center stocks that flare and fade without disrupting the broader market.

It’s a fragmented kind of exuberance. Rather than one sweeping boom, investors are navigating a scatterplot of smaller frenzies. Take your pick: AI stocks, gold’s record run, SPACs 2.0, and leverage-fueled trading.

Even bitcoin (BTC=F), down from its surge near $120,000 but still holding around $110,000, underscores a market that’s both exuberant and strangely steady.

And as Yardeni reminds us, we’ve seen this movie before.

The “everything bubble” narrative first took off under Janet Yellen and gained momentum during the pandemic-era stimulus of 2020-2021, a period that also sparked sharp but short-lived bursts of speculation. (Think: dumb money, GameStop, meme stock mania.)

Those excesses eventually deflated, yet none triggered a financial calamity or a recession. The same could prove true again: Bubbles burst, but history shows the pop often leaves behind fertile ground for the next rally.

The backdrop isn’t too shabby this time either. Stocks are sitting at record highs. US real GDP is at a record high. And with the exception of the two-month pandemic lockdown in early 2020, the US hasn’t seen an official recession in 16 years.

Goldman Sachs struck a similar tone in a new report asking whether AI has entered bubble territory.

Goldman strategists Eric Sheridan and Kash Rangan warned that the AI build-out has grown “circular,” with Big Tech companies buying from and investing in one another.

“The circularity does make me nervous,” Sheridan said. “This is another example of the current period rhyming with the dot-com bubble.”

But a rhyme doesn’t equal a repeat. Sheridan and Rangan both emphasized that this isn’t 1999 with today’s top tech companies. Chipmakers like Nvidia (NVDA) and hyperscalers including Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOG), and Amazon (AMZN) generate massive cash flow, return capital to shareholders, and still trade well below the extremes of the dot-com era.

“AI may just not be a bubble yet,” Sheridan said.

If Yardeni’s right, that may be the point: Little bubbles will always form and eventually burst.

But in a market strong enough to float them, a few pops aren’t a problem. They’re proof the whole thing’s still afloat.

Allie Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.

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