Many of us know the saying "history often rhymes, but never repeats". In my view, that couldn't be more true of the chart below. This represents the ratio of SOX (Philadelphia Semiconductor Index) / SPX (S&P 500). Directly preceding the early 2000's tech bust, we had a similar run of semiconductor stocks with cyclical fundamentals that greatly outpaced US large-caps in the S&P 500. Cisco was a notable member in the index at the time. Just look how badly semi's crashed and burned even relative to the S&P 500 during a stock market crash, when market participants quickly capitulated on speculative tech.
I started with "history often rhymes, but never repeats" because I don't think we're going to see an identical outcome in this cycle. The equity market environment is very similar - i.e. valuations don't matter, the AI craze is the early 2000's internet craze, extreme market weight concentration held in mega-caps, etc. - with key distinctions as well, such as monopolistic tech stocks with multi-trillion dollar market caps. But the real concern could be that the macro backdrop overall is far more dangerous than heading into the early 2000's. I think mostly anyone would agree that's not even a close call.
Whether it's economic disappointment, earnings disappointment, or any general economic or asset market related event that leads investors in US equities to capitulate, valuations will begin to urgently matter. I suspect that will inevitably lead market participants to meaningfully selloff excessively overhyped semi's, with expectations of fundamentals like earnings and revenues drastically disconnected from where their actuals will land.
If we do see a similar outcome where there's a severe drawdown in speculative tech, my sense is the difference between the early 2000's could be the duration of the bear market. As many obviously know, tech stocks quite literally crashed in the early 2000's. With today's multi-trillion dollar monopolistic tech firms, the upcoming valuation rebalance in the US equity market could take significantly longer and perhaps not feel as much like the "crash" of the early 2000's. Time will tell.