The Nasdaq Composite could surge to 30,000 over the next year as robust Big Tech earnings and relentless enthusiasm around artificial intelligence continue to drive markets higher, according to Wedbush Securities Managing Director Dan Ives.
Speaking to CNBC's Squawk Box Europe, Ives said the latest earnings season has reinforced investor confidence in the AI trade, dismissing concerns that the rally resembles the dot-com bubble of 1999-2000.
“These earnings have validated the AI bullish thesis,” Ives said. “Demand and supply is 10-1 for chips. We are in the early days still of the AI revolution. The haters will hate, and we know that.”
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The comments come even as famed investor Michael Burry, known for predicting the 2008 financial crisis and portrayed in The Big Short, warned on Friday that markets are showing signs of speculative excess.
“Stocks are not up or down because of jobs or consumer sentiment,” Burry wrote.
“They are going straight up because they have been going straight up. On a two-letter thesis that everyone thinks they understand ... feeling like the last months of the 1999-2000 bubble.”
Despite the caution, Ives remains firmly bullish on AI-linked sectors and expects the rally to extend over the next two years, driven by what he called a “memory super-cycle” tied to unprecedented demand for AI infrastructure.
“When it comes to SK Hynix [and other memory companies] we're very bullish in what we're seeing there,” he said.
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Ives added that investors should broaden their exposure beyond semiconductor stocks and focus on the wider AI ecosystem, including software, cybersecurity, infrastructure and power companies.
“It's about playing the hyperscalers — of course chips, then you have to play software, cybersecurity, infrastructure [and] power,” he said.
“You can't just own one subsector, you have to own the derivative plays.”
The Nasdaq Composite is up nearly 13% so far this year, while the Nasdaq PHLX Semiconductor Index has rallied 38% over the past month amid sharp gains in companies such as Nvidia, Intel, Apple and Alphabet.
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