Remember when everyone thought radio was going to change the world? Well, it did – just not in the way investors expected when they bid RCA stock up 1,200% in three years. Spoiler alert: it crashed 95% in 1929.
Fast forward to the late ’90s, and suddenly everyone’s a dot-com genius because they bought pets.com at $14 (it went to zero, by the way). The Nasdaq doubled in 18 months, then lost 80% of its value faster than you could say “this time is different.”
Now here we are in 2025, watching AI stocks go absolutely bonkers. Nvidia’s up 10x since ChatGPT launched. The Nasdaq 100 has doubled. And if you’re getting serious déjà vu vibes, you’re not crazy – you’re just paying attention to history.
The Three-Ingredient Recipe for Market Disasters
Every major market meltdown follows the same playbook. You need three things:
1. A shiny new technology that promises to revolutionize everything (radio, internet, AI – pick your poison)
2. Easy access to markets (margin loans in the ’20s, online brokers in the ’90s, zero-commission trading today)
3. Cheap money everywhere (because nothing says “sound investment strategy” like borrowing to buy stocks)
Sound familiar? That’s because we’re living through Mega Melt-Up 3.0 right now. AI is the new hotness, you can buy fractional shares with your lunch money, and consumer credit is at record highs.
Why 2026 Could Be the Year Everything Goes Sideways
Wall Street veteran Marc Chaikin – who correctly called the 2022 bear market, the 2023 recovery, and this year’s tariff tantrum – is now predicting a 20% market drop in 2026. His track record is annoyingly good, so maybe we should listen.
The scary part? Today’s market moves faster than a caffeinated day trader. The 10 biggest daily swings in the S&P 500 over the past 30 years have all happened in the last five years. When things go bad now, they go bad fast.
How Not to Get Steamrolled
Look, I’m not saying sell everything and hide under your mattress with gold coins. But maybe don’t put all your eggs in the “AI will save us all” basket.
First, audit your holdings. Why do you own what you own? If your answer is “because it went up,” that’s not a strategy – that’s gambling.
Second, diversify for real. The S&P 500 isn’t actually diversified when two AI stocks (Nvidia and Google) are doing most of the heavy lifting. That’s concentration risk wearing a diversification costume.
Finally, have an exit plan. Hope is not a strategy, and “diamond hands” is just a fancy way of saying “I refuse to admit I was wrong.”
History doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme. And right now, it’s rhyming with some pretty expensive lessons from the past. The question isn’t whether this party will end – it’s whether you’ll still be dancing when the music stops.