‘Nothing Else Matters’ in Today’s Market, Says Strategist

On the May 11 episode of The Morning Filter podcast, Morningstar Chief US Market Strategist Dave Sekera argued that the artificial intelligence boom is consuming the market to the extent that we may be entering bubble territory. Here’s an excerpt from the episode.

Susan Dziubinski: OK, so let’s begin this week with an update on last week’s developments in the war and last week’s market activity. We saw the S&P 500 hit new records last week, and oil did fall last week below $100. Where do we stand this morning?

David Sekera: As far as the oil markets go, there’s a lot of back and forth, a lot of negotiations, a lot of posturing going on between the US and Iran, but unfortunately, at this point, still no resolution. I saw oil prices bounce around a lot last week. They ended the week at $95 a barrel, which is $5 lower than the prior week. Unfortunately, this morning they’re heading back up again. Last I saw was about $98.

Just to put that in context, they were like $55 to $60 a barrel preconflict. As far as events last week, it’s all about earnings, all about artificial intelligence, all about the artificial intelligence buildout boom. This would be the point in the show that, if my producer would allow me, I’d have the Metallica song “Nothing Else Matters” playing in the background, because again, that’s the only thing people were looking at in the market.

In fact, when I look at how a lot of these stocks that are most closely correlated to the artificial intelligence boom are going, got to admit, the market is starting to feel a little bubbly here to me.

Dziubinski: Yeah. What specifically are you seeing there that makes you feel like it’s bubbly?

Sekera: I mean, a couple of things. In the options market, if you look at the number of calls outstanding on the S&P 500, my understanding is those are hitting new all-time highs as far as the number or the volume that are being traded right now. If you look at specific parts of the market like the SOX—that’s the Semiconductor Index—that’s up 24 out of 28 days in a row. That’s rallied over 60%, really over just the past month. Lastly, I was just looking at a lot of individual stock price action. Of our coverage of those over 700 companies that we cover that trade on US exchanges, since the end of 2024, 63 of them have had over 100% return. When I look through those individually, I’d estimate at least half of those are directly tied to the AI buildout boom.

When I break those numbers down further, there’s 18 with over a 200% return, and eight of them have over a 300% return. Of the top 10 returning stocks since the end of 2024, nine of 10 are AI-related stocks, and it ain’t over. I mean, just this year, 12 stocks have more than doubled. 11 of those 12 are AI stocks. In fact, the one that’s not technically an AI stock is a lithium stock, which I could probably argue that that’s also an AI stock. If I look at the market capitalization of those 12, we’ve seen an increase of those 12 by $2 trillion.

When I look at these kinds of increases in this short of a time period, to me, that’s not necessarily indicative of what I consider to be a more normal type of market action.

Data source: Morningstar Direct. Data as of May 6, 2026.

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