Everyone's Watching Stocks. The Real Bubble Is AI Debt

(bloomberg.com)

43 points | by zerosizedweasle 13 hours ago ago

27 comments

  • pjb88 11 hours ago ago

    Any ideas of where to invest just now?

    Seems like there's lots of warnings about equity bubbles, bond/debt problems, economic issues that will affect inflation (UK/EU), and gold is mega high. Seems like everywhere you look it's doom?

    • krupan 10 hours ago ago

      Long term or short term investment? One time lump sum investment or investing a little each paycheck? What's your risk tolerance? The answers to those questions are needed to answer your overall question well

      • pjb88 30 minutes ago ago

        Long term. Like normally I do a mix of index funds wide diversification plus bonds 80/20, but even vanguard (despite always saying "get a plan and stick to it, tune out the noise") are all of a sudden saying they're under weighting growth stocks.. (Which I think is a bit strange that they don't acknowledge that it's different from their normal strategy)

    • nitwit005 10 hours ago ago

      If everything seems too expensive, and you're confident enough the prices will go down, you should just hold cash and wait.

      • saulpw 8 hours ago ago

        This is specious advice. Never hold 100% anything.

        Especially cash. Maybe/likely the US Fed will pump trillions of new dollars into the economy in random places and cause massive inflation.

        So let's say we hold 25% cash, or even 50% cash. We still have to allocate the other 50-75% somewhere. Where?

        • rchaud 7 hours ago ago

          Allocate it to a bank account with deposit insurance and go long on "peace of mind". Losing 3-5% of purchasing power over 12 months' time is better than losing 15% or more in an overnight crash and have to wait for the government to intervene and prop values back up.

    • hippo22 3 hours ago ago

      During the dotcom bubble, Alan Greenspan recognized that irrational exuberance was driving the market to unsupported valuations. He said this in 1996. The bubble wouldn’t pop for many years. In fact, the deepest nasdaq market correction was still above the nasdaq value when he initially made his comment. The point is, time in the market > timing the market (at least for most people).

    • therobots927 11 hours ago ago

      Spain. $EWP. Also pretty much any other developed nation stock index.

      It’s the new flight to safety after gold.

      • csto12 11 hours ago ago

        Why Spain?

        • therobots927 9 hours ago ago

          Who knows. But thats the country up the most last year.

          • sph 7 hours ago ago

            Ah yes, the good old investment advice: if a stock has been going up, it’s time to buy.

            Good luck with that strategy.

            • therobots927 7 hours ago ago

              Oh and what’s your strategy Mr. Buffet?

              • sph 6 hours ago ago

                For one, Mr Buffet coined the aphorism “be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful” and here you are suggesting the literal opposite.

                • therobots927 5 hours ago ago

                  I don’t think one year of outperformance counts as greed. There’s a reason I didn’t recommend gold.

            • bdangubic 5 hours ago ago

              I heard this about NVDA in 2020 and 2021 and 2022 and 2023 and 2024 and 2025 and now 2026… if the stock is going up it is 100% time to buy if you know what the F you are doing. if you don’t know what you are doing then you sell when the stock is going up :)

    • cornhole 6 hours ago ago

      the one Japan blog post recommended the Nikkei 225 while the yen is still dogshit

    • marbro 10 hours ago ago

      [dead]

  • tabs_or_spaces 11 hours ago ago

    interesting that no mention of nvidia in there?

    also really surprised that tech companies have more debt than cash on hand. would be really interesting to know how apple fares in this comparison too.

    • zerosizedweasle 11 hours ago ago

      Not really surprising that the debt is greater than cash on hand. The buildout has gotten really extreme at this point. Basically eating everything in economy from credit to RAM.

  • zerosizedweasle 13 hours ago ago
  • zerosizedweasle 13 hours ago ago

    As A.I. Companies Borrow Billions, Debt Investors Grow Wary https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/business/ai-debt-investor...

  • dinofp 11 hours ago ago

    Can't get past the paywall but who the F already didn't know this for over a year? Go read Ed Zitron, Bloomberg, you're drunk.

    • lovich 11 hours ago ago

      I’ve read Mr. Zitrons articles and recently exited a 10 year old position I held with Nvidia due to his analysis, but this part of the article was news to me

      > The investment requirements are so large that equity financing alone won’t do. The balance sheets of many of the major players have been altered significantly. Looking at Meta’s annual statement before ChatGPT was released to the public in November 2022, it had over three times as much cash as debt on its balance sheet. Last quarter it had 15% more debt. Microsoft had 30% more cash than debt pre-ChatGPT. Now it has almost 20% more debt. Amazon, which has traditionally had a more leveraged balance sheet, now has over 50% more debt than cash

      I was still under the impression that all the faangs had more cash than liabilities, I wasn’t aware that had flipped

      • VirusNewbie 10 hours ago ago

        Why hold cash when you're a money printing machine about to go into an inflationary period?

        • therobots927 7 hours ago ago

          Even if you’re correct about entering an inflationary period that doesn’t mean money is better in chips than cash. Chips can depreciate faster than cash even in an “inflationary environment”. They’d be better off buying back shares.

    • zerosizedweasle 11 hours ago ago

      Paywall removed: https://archive.is/mwmia