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>the private market can't possibly go any higher Can public markets go higher? Shiller P/E is closing in on the peak of the dot-com bubble: https://www.multp

>the private market can't possibly go any higher Can public markets go higher? Shiller P/E is closing in on the peak of the dot-com bubble: https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe This is already close to being the frothiest market in US history. Consider two competing forecasts for AI: it's a "normal technology", or it will be superintelligent. If it's a "normal technology", where's the moat? Why won't this turn into a boring commodity business, like telecom after the bubble? Sure, railroads transformed the US, but that didn't prevent investors from losing a bunch of money first: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900502 If it's superintelligence, we're most likely either all dead (in which case you helped cause human extinction by investing, congratulations) or else we're living on generous UBI: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/you-have-only-x-years-to-escape-permanent https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/you-have-only-x-years-to-es...

staticman2 5mo ago
> Can public markets go higher? Shiller P/E is closing in on the peak of the dot-com bubble: Shiller PE is near 44. Japan had an equivalent price to earnings ratio of over 70 during their 1989 bubble.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
  Hm, wasn't Japan's bubble in part due to easy credit? Are we going to see easy credit in the US given recent memories of inflation?
  - pjc50 5mo ago
    Quite possible that there will be a Trump effort to drive down rates and abandon inflation control for political reasons.
    - staticman2 5mo ago
      There already was such an effort but Trump lacks enough federal reserve votes to succeed at present.
zipy124 5mo ago
P/E is not an indicator of available to deployed capital. Just in the EU alone there is about €12 trillion in bank deposits which could be invested. There is no lack of liquid capital to be invested.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
  There is the amount of capital which is technically available, and the amount of capital which is available in practice. If EU depositors want exposure to US AI firms, why didn't they already withdraw their money to invest in Microsoft/Google/etc.? I'm a bit doubtful that an OpenAI IPO is going to trigger major shifts in asset allocation.
- pjc50 5mo ago
  Basel capital rules are supposed to mitigate against the insane idea of banks deploying all their capital in a single high risk stock. If you think you can get all the _public_ to pull their short term bank deposits into stock .. well, (a) you've not met the Germans, and (b) that is how the economy of Albania collapsed in a pyramid scheme.
  - Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago
    > Basel capital rules are supposed to mitigate against the insane idea of banks deploying all their capital in a single high risk stock. At the same time of these companies IPO'ing, they are also trying to bend the rules of the index funds and their markets (Nasdaq,S&P 500) so that they can get listed into these index funds asap. And when these happens at such obscene levels, what happens is that a very sizable chunk of the S&P will get into these companies (5-10% is a very large number for a single company especially such companies within these index funds IMO) and their whole plan is that then banks and other investments sitting on cash would then invest in it. Oh by the way, your retirement funds might also be linked to it all. The fact is that there is a race with multiple companies (SpaceX,Anthropic,OpenAI) all trying to IPO and get listed on the stock markets as soon as possible.
    - 5mo ago
pkaeding 5mo ago
The M2 money supply is ~4x higher now than in 1999. Does that indicate there is a lot more runway now, than then, at least on that metric?
- pama 5mo ago
  Nasdaq is about 8x higher now than then, so 4x higher M2 is tight. Ofc there is always a chance that this time is different and that the markets are genuinely much more efficient :-)
- 0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
  The P/E ratio references "price" and "earnings". Both "price" and "earnings" are denominated using money. So it's not obvious to me how an increase in the money supply should affect this ratio. BTW, in Shiller's book which was published right as the dot-com bubble popped, he has a chapter listing out similar late 90s structural factors, many of which could lead to permanently higher stock prices in theory.
danny_codes 5mo ago
The exit strategy is your 401k. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are banking on rule changes to indexes that will force retail to buy at elevated premiums. This will likely generate enough artificial demand for insiders to exit before prices correct. At least that’s OpenAI’s plan. Fortunately for them, the current SEC is highly in favor of short-term market manipulation.

staticman2 5mo ago

> Can public markets go higher? Shiller P/E is closing in on the peak of the dot-com bubble: Shiller PE is near 44. Japan had an equivalent price to earnings ratio of over 70 during their 1989 bubble.

0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
Hm, wasn't Japan's bubble in part due to easy credit? Are we going to see easy credit in the US given recent memories of inflation?
- pjc50 5mo ago
  Quite possible that there will be a Trump effort to drive down rates and abandon inflation control for political reasons.
  - staticman2 5mo ago
    There already was such an effort but Trump lacks enough federal reserve votes to succeed at present.

zipy124 5mo ago

P/E is not an indicator of available to deployed capital. Just in the EU alone there is about €12 trillion in bank deposits which could be invested. There is no lack of liquid capital to be invested.

0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
There is the amount of capital which is technically available, and the amount of capital which is available in practice. If EU depositors want exposure to US AI firms, why didn't they already withdraw their money to invest in Microsoft/Google/etc.? I'm a bit doubtful that an OpenAI IPO is going to trigger major shifts in asset allocation.
pjc50 5mo ago
Basel capital rules are supposed to mitigate against the insane idea of banks deploying all their capital in a single high risk stock. If you think you can get all the _public_ to pull their short term bank deposits into stock .. well, (a) you've not met the Germans, and (b) that is how the economy of Albania collapsed in a pyramid scheme.
- Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago
  > Basel capital rules are supposed to mitigate against the insane idea of banks deploying all their capital in a single high risk stock. At the same time of these companies IPO'ing, they are also trying to bend the rules of the index funds and their markets (Nasdaq,S&P 500) so that they can get listed into these index funds asap. And when these happens at such obscene levels, what happens is that a very sizable chunk of the S&P will get into these companies (5-10% is a very large number for a single company especially such companies within these index funds IMO) and their whole plan is that then banks and other investments sitting on cash would then invest in it. Oh by the way, your retirement funds might also be linked to it all. The fact is that there is a race with multiple companies (SpaceX,Anthropic,OpenAI) all trying to IPO and get listed on the stock markets as soon as possible.
  - 5mo ago

pkaeding 5mo ago

The M2 money supply is ~4x higher now than in 1999. Does that indicate there is a lot more runway now, than then, at least on that metric?

pama 5mo ago
Nasdaq is about 8x higher now than then, so 4x higher M2 is tight. Ofc there is always a chance that this time is different and that the markets are genuinely much more efficient :-)
0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
The P/E ratio references "price" and "earnings". Both "price" and "earnings" are denominated using money. So it's not obvious to me how an increase in the money supply should affect this ratio. BTW, in Shiller's book which was published right as the dot-com bubble popped, he has a chapter listing out similar late 90s structural factors, many of which could lead to permanently higher stock prices in theory.

danny_codes 5mo ago

The exit strategy is your 401k. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are banking on rule changes to indexes that will force retail to buy at elevated premiums. This will likely generate enough artificial demand for insiders to exit before prices correct. At least that’s OpenAI’s plan. Fortunately for them, the current SEC is highly in favor of short-term market manipulation.