[English]
Guys, you know me. Whenever I talk about
the next stock market crash, it's not
if, it's when. It will happen. And I'm
going to tell you what I'm seeing right
now has me worried. I'm not Nostradamus.
I can't give you a date for when it's
going to happen, but history tells us
that what's going on in the stock market
right now typically leads to a crash.
But the thing about the stock market
crashes is that with the right plan,
they will turn into the best opportunity
to make lifechanging money. I'll get to
that later. But first off, let me show
you exactly what's going on. Now guys, I
don't literally mean I'm scared. I look
forward to market drops. Not like
everybody else says I buy all these
companies that have to price. I
literally get excited. If you look at my
Instagram back from March of 2020, you
will see a picture of me kissing the
screen when the market was down like 8%.
Guys, these are opportunities. I want
you to look at it the same way. But I
get worried when I see people out there
put their hard-earned money into
something, expecting the past, the
recent past to repeat itself. Now,
you've heard people say, "Just buy the
S&P. It's safe. It's diversified." Guess
what? I say this. I believe that. And
for the vast, vast majority of time,
it's true. The longer and longer your
outlook is, it's been true. The S&P 500
is the biggest basket of the 500
strongest American companies. But right
now, the S&P is being taken over. It's
being dominated by a handful of massive
tech companies that are all racing to
win the AI game. Apple, Microsoft,
Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Tesla,
Broadcom, Oracle, all of these companies
are fighting for AI. These companies
have gotten so big so fast that they now
control a huge chunk of the index. In
fact, guys, the tech sector now makes up
over 35% of the whole S&P. And of
course, it changes from day to day.
Guys, Larry Ellen, an 82 83y old
billionaire who's been a billionaire for
a long time, made $100 billion in one
day cuz his stock went up. Nvidia alone,
that company makes the brains called the
GPUs behind most AI tools. That company
alone is 7% of the entire index. So 500
companies, that means each name is2%,
but it's based on market cap. Nvidia
makes up 35 times more than that. Since
chat GPT burst on the scene in late
2022, AI focused stocks have driven 75%
of the S&P 500's total return. That
means if you made money in the last
couple years, odds are that it came from
one of these top concentrated companies.
But here's the catch. In investing, when
too much weight sits on just a few
companies, that's when things start to
wobble. That's when you need to be
worried. This continually ends the same
way. And we're going to get into that.
But first, let's talk about why this
concentration matters, guys. This is the
nine companies versus the S&P. Here's
the S&P's return year to date, 14.5%. Of
those nine companies, six have
outperformed. Six of them have
outperformed. The biggest gainer,
Oracle. That's the day that Larry
Ellison made $100 billion. These are big
numbers, guys. There are benefits to
concentration. The best investors ever,
they will concentrate their portfolio in
5 10 15 items and companies in order to
outperform. But when a diversified group
of companies like the S&P 500 is too
concentrated in one area, that's a
problem. These nine companies are all
doing different job, but they're all
tied to the same theme, AI. And that
means if AI stumbles or AI slows down or
turns out to be less profitable than
everybody hopes, your diversified S&P
500 is suddenly looking a whole lot
riskier. Remember four, five, six years
ago, everyone said, "You can't bet
against Tesla and Elon Musk. You can't
bet against Amazon." And those companies
have underperformed in the last 5 years.
These companies aren't just big, they're
enormous. And when their stock prices
move, the entire market moves. In fact,
there have been days in the last year
where these seven to nine companies are
down, the rest of the market is up, yet
the S&P is down for that reason, and
vice versa. So ask yourself this
question. If your portfolio depends on
nine companies all swimming in the same
AI pool, is that really a safe and
balanced investment? If in the 1999 you
bought 50.com companies that all made no
money, were you diversified? No. If you
have a bunch of diversified crap, it's
still crap. The good news is these
companies are not crap. They're great
companies. Every single one of them
makes money. But it is not a diversified
and balanced investment. Now listen, we
have witnessed this many times before. I
have witnessed this in my 30 years of
investing. And you, if you were around
in the late '9s, this AI moment is
starting to look a lot like a reboot of
the dot bubble, but with more hype and
buzzwords. Why? We have the internet. We
have social media. It's easier to get
involved. I will say though, these AI
companies do far better and are selling
for better multiples than the dot
companies. But here's the thing.
Whenever you see a handful of stocks
skyrocket on hype and everyone starts
saying this time it's different through
their actions, not their words, that's
when I start getting concerned.
Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham calls
it exactly what it is, a bubble within a
bubble. He's not denying AI could be
huge someday. Nobody is. I am definitely
not doing that. Just like the internet
was going to change the world as it did
back then. All he's saying is that the
prices that people are paying for the
future are totally out of whack.
Remember, we believe in price versus
value. We want to buy when price is
below value. And how do you determine
value? Well, you look at the future, the
potential. The hard part about AI is we
don't know the potential. It could be
many, many magnitudes bigger or half of
that, which is still many magnitudes,
but it's not enough. But Grantham's
playbook is simple. When things get this
frothy, he steps back. When things get
reliant on a future that cannot be
questioned or can't have any hurdles, he
steps back. He looks at cheaper, safer
opportunities, value stocks,
international markets, stuff that isn't
on fire from hype fumes. Now, keep in
mind, guys, companies that are hyped can
still be value plays. Companies that
have a lot of growth potential can still
be value plays. But there's more to it
than that. If your neighbor's young kid
is talking about investment, if your
waiter or waitress is talking about AI
and all these other things, there's
probably a problem there. Then there's
Michael Bur, the big short guy. The man
made a fortune betting against the
housing bubble. But what people don't
remember is he is an incredible stock
picker and today he's shorting the AI
hype train. As of mid 2025, his fund
just had one long position. Everything
else defensive. That's contrarian. He's
seen what happens when everyone runs the
same direction. Now, keep in mind, he
has kind of sound the alarm on these
things before and he's been wrong. And a
lot of people would say like, "Oh, he's
just a FUDster." He's not a FUDster.
He's one of the few people that made
money during the com bust and was making
money on individual stocks. Even the
bond king, Bill Gross of Pimco, formerly
of Pimco, is waving the red flag,
warning that if AI doesn't deliver,
trillions could go poof. Listen to that.
if AI doesn't deliver. He's not sitting
there saying if AI doesn't work, if AI
doesn't deliver on what people expect
from it. And Charlie Mer, God rest his
soul, bluntly called it overhyped before
he passed. Remember, he's not saying it
doesn't deserve hype. It's just
overhyped. There's a very, very clear
distinction there. Now, Warren Buffett,
he's much more measured as usual. He
doesn't want people dislike him. So,
he's going to be very cautious and
measured in his statements. But look at
his actions. He's not chasing the shiny
stuff. Birkshshire is buying things like
steel, oil, and not chasing the next AI
model that guesses your lunch order. And
he said the same thing in the late 90s
about internet stocks and tech stocks.
Now, all he was saying was, I can't
value these things 10, 20, 30 years from
now. It's too soon. That's all he was
saying. He's not saying they're not good
companies. He's saying I cannot value
them. There's a very big distinction
there that I want you as a new viewer of
our channel to see. And don't get me
wrong, there's still permables like
Kathy Wood who think AI will unlock 13
trillion by 2030. Guys, Kathy Wood's an
idiot. If you listen to Kathy Wood, I'm
shocked you've made it this far. Now,
the things I'm saying to you make sense.
I'm glad you've made it this far. But
ask yourself, how often are market
predictions right? Guys, the warning
signs are flashing. Insanely wild
valuations. The ironic part is that's
the one warning sign that people are
ignoring that they should absolutely pay
attention to. Guys, think about it this
way. The US economy is so big. Is it
possible for all the companies in the US
economy to be a thousand times bigger
than the US economy? No. There's got to
be some ratio that makes sense. Does it
make sense that they're 1%? No.
Somewhere in the middle, it makes sense.
We're right now at a level that is over
120% higher than historical average.
That's an insane valuation. Keep in mind
that during the dot craze, it got to 55%
overvalued. We are 120ome percent
overvalued guys. We had Nvidia recently
invest a hundred billion dollars into
chat GPT and that hundred million that
hundred billion dollars was then used to
go buy Nvidia chips. Is it kind of
weird? Maybe. Is it manipulative? Maybe.
But I will tell you Nvidia something
like 80% of their sales come from seven
companies. 23% comes from one company.
And here's the real danger. When the
crowd gets emotional, logic takes a
backseat right before the crash. This is
how bubbles work, big story, big hopes,
big price tags, and then big problems.
Now, let me remind you of something that
Warren Buffett drilled into my head
years ago. Price is what you pay. Value
is what you get. And when it comes to AI
right now, I believe that investors are
paying Ferrari prices for cars that may
not have left the garage yet. Now, I
don't know this for sure. The future's
unknown, but all I know is when I see
everyone talking about a certain area, I
get apprehensive. When everybody in 2005
was a real estate flipper, a little
concerning when everybody was talking
about these electric electric vehicles
back in the late te 201s, little
concerning look how that turned out and
look what we said about it. I'm not
saying that AI doesn't have potential.
It's got massive potential. It's already
changing everything we do in our
business. But here's a real question
every discipline investor needs to ask.
Will AI produce the returns that justify
the price people are paying today?
That's it. There is a price that's too
high to pay for a great story. If you
don't believe that, then I encourage you
to watch more of our videos. You've got
to realize that there's too high a price
to pay. That's the whole game. The stock
market doesn't care about buzzwords. The
stock market in the long run cares about
cash flow and fundamentals, real returns
on investment. But in the short run, it
cares about what's most popular when
going up and what's least popular when
going down. Right now, these nine
companies are pouring hundreds of
billions of dollars into AI
infrastructure, chips, software, and
data centers. But here's the kicker. The
profits haven't caught up quite yet on
that investment. It's already made a lot
of money on the first investment, but
most of the AI revenue today is still
experimental or speculative. It's hope.
It's potential. It's a story. Doesn't
mean it can't work out, though. That's
the amazing part. I'm just sitting there
saying, "If it does work out, that's
great, but there's too much unknown for
me and too much price being paid for
that." And the investors are pricing it
like it's already guaranteed. Guys, you
can think back in your lifetime. How
many sure things didn't happen? How many
obvious things didn't happen? That's not
investing. That is wishful thinking. A
real value investor which is really any
real investor who has a process looks at
cash flow. They look at the balance
sheet. They look return on capital and
we ask if I own this business for the
next 10, 20, 30 years. Will the return
and cash flow I get justify the price
that I'm paying today? That's it. Could
it happen with all these big Absolutely
could happen. But history shows us that
when hype is the most high, it's kind of
hard for the future. This is a giant
question mark as of right now for a lot
of these AI stocks. Yes, Nvidia is
exploding. They've absolutely crushed
it. Yes, Microsoft is integrating AI
into everything. Google's got Gemini.
But what happens if growth isn't 50% a
year and if it's 40% a year? It sounds
like a small difference, but it's a
massive difference when you're talking
about 10 20 years and talking about
values. What happens if these massive
investments don't translate to
meaningful earnings? Guys, if I shoot a
gun right here from here to 10 feet
away, I can move my thing. I move my gun
maybe a millimeter. I'm still going to
hit it. The further out you go, any
small directional change is going to
cause a big miss. That's all I'm saying
here. So, you might sit there and say,
"Well, then how do people invest?" Well,
value investors, what they do is they
find companies where they can
meaningfully predict the earnings in the
future. So, what happens when they don't
translate into these earnings? Well,
that's when reality hits and price comes
crashing back down to meet value. So,
don't confuse popularity with
profitability. Let's get something
straight right now. AI is 1 million%
real. The innovation is 1 million% real.
The technology is beyond impressive. But
that does not mean the prices make sense
at any price. This is where most
investors get tripped up. They think,
well, AI is clearly the future, so these
stocks must be worth it. Maybe, but
that's not how investing works. It could
very well work out that way. But if you
made bets on all that going forward, you
might have a hard time. Guys, in the
late late 90s, tell me the internet
wasn't real. Of course, it was real. It
changed everything. Guess what? Along
the way, investors lost tons of money
cuz they bit up every tech stock that
had a dot on the end of it or who
mentioned their dot or website in their
earnings call. Sound familiar? People
bought companies no matter what. Back
then, it was no profits, no revenue,
just hype. It's the future. That's what
they said. And guess what? The NASDAQ
dropped nearly 80%. And you might sit
there and say, "Yeah, but Paul, those
companies weren't making money." Not the
NASDAQ 100. Those companies were making
money. It's not enough for technology to
be real. It has to produce real returns.
And those returns have to justify the
price you're paying today. So, here's
the lesson. Real innovation can exist
inside a speculative bubble. They are
not mutually exclusive. When prices get
too far ahead of reality, even great
companies can become terrible
investments. Tesla was a great company
in 2021. I would argue it's still a
great company, but then it went down 50%
that next year. Did it stop becoming a
great company? Come on. Don't confuse
progress with profit. Just because
something is the next big thing doesn't
mean it's worth owning at any price. As
investors though, as true investors, we
focus on value, not price. Guys, Cisco
was more expensive in 2000 than Nvidia
is today. I will absolutely say that.
But guys, Cisco is a great learning
lesson. Cisco in 2000 hit a high of 82
bucks. Has not seen that high since. Yet
its revenue is up four times. Its
profits up 5x. And if you take out this
strip right here, you basically got a
pretty normal company. And from here to
here, revenue was up 10x and profits up
10x. And guess what? Price is up 10x.
Coincidence? I think not.
The reason I'm showing this one and
there's probably countless example
actually pretty much any company if you
look at Microsoft all these things the
companies are up in the long run how
much their profit is up. So let's talk
about something very boring but brutally
important that you must listen to mean
reversion reverting back to the mean. It
sounds like something out of a math
textbook but it's actually one of the
most powerful forces in all of
investing. What it basically says if
something is way above or normal
eventually it comes back down. That is
mean reversion. And right now, the S&P
500 is screaming for a reversion. We've
talked about how just a handful of
companies, the Magnificent 7 and a few
AI giants, are carrying the whole index.
They've grown so big, so fast that they
now dominate pretty much the entire
market return. History shows that
concentration like this will not last
forever. Every time we've seen a few
stocks dominate, whether it was oil in
the 70s, Japanese stocks in the 80s, or
tech in the dotcom era, it always ends
the same way. A reversion back to the
mean. Guys, the Nikke index of Japan hit
an all-time high in December of 1989. It
did not see another all-time high until
a few years ago, 30ome years. I joked
with my brother that he never saw a new
Japanese all-time high until he was
married and had two kids. Hot companies
will cool off. Every hot company of
1970,
tell me who they are today. Then do the
hot companies of 2000, there's only one
company from the list in 2000 that's
still around today. It's Microsoft. And
guess what? In 2011 and 2012, a tech CEO
told me how Microsoft was dead because
it's a terrible company. And that was a
growing concern in the market. The
lagards will catch up and the whole
index shifts back to normal balance.
History and current valuations tell us
something's coming. Guys, I teach on
YouTube because I never heard this
before. And we have such an advantage to
be able to teach this and get a
community of like-minded people. I think
to myself, the things that took me 5 to
10 years to learn, I could have learned
in 6 to 12 months had I had YouTube 25
years ago. But remember guys, just
because I'm raising red flags doesn't
mean that I'm saying sell everything and
go wait for a crash. No, that's not what
we're here about. We're not panicking.
We're investors. What I'm here to do is
say the last 1015 years have been
awesome. Be ready for the next 10 or 15
years not to be as good, but the people
who are truly prepared will be ready for
the next big boom. We don't make
decisions based on fear or headlines. We
make them based on principles and data
if you want to survive long term in this
game. You need guard rails. You need a
system that keeps you from making the
kind of emotional decisions that wreck
most people's portfolios. That's why I
live by these five tenants of principal
driven investing and our entire
community does as well. One, we're
investors, not speculators. This one
stops me from chasing hot stocks or
trying to time the market. Two, we're
not gamblers, we're business owners.
Every investment is a present value of
all its future cash flows. What that
means guys is that future cash flow is
going to happen because the business
performs. So what I pay for it today and
that cash flow in the future will really
determine the return of the company of
my investment not because the stock
price goes up and down. That'll happen
with those cash flows. Three, if we
don't understand it, we don't invest in
it. If I can't explain how a company
makes money or what it's going to make
in the future, I won't be able to say
how it's going to lose money. So I walk
away. Four, in the short run, stock
market's a voting machine. In the long
run, it's a weighing machine. Cisco,
short run, voting machine. Long run,
weighing machine. Like clockwork. And
the fifth and probably most important
one. A great story can become a bad
investment if you pay the wrong price.
These aren't just cute sayings. They're
a mindset that protects me. They protect
me from bubbles, from hype, from FOMO.
They help me think logically, not
emotionally. And that's exactly what
most investors never learn. See, most
people are obsessed with finding the
next big winner. You know what the best
investors do? They eliminate the losers
first. That's what we're doing here.
We're breaking things down. We're
separating story from substance, price
from value, because that's what
principal driven investing is all about.
Rational, valuebased decision-m. And
that's how you build real wealth. So
guys, those five tenants, great news. I
don't expect you to memorize all those.
I have a shortcut for you. A simple PDF
that lays them out in plain English. No
crazy jargon, just the exact rules I
follow to stay disciplined and avoid
emotional mistakes. This guide is your
cheat sheet. When prices are bouncing
around and emotions are high, pull the
PDF out, read through the principles,
remind yourself why you're here. Guys, I
do this every single day. Focus on price
versus value, not the daily nose. So,
click the link description below,
download it, and start using it today.
And don't worry, we're not here to just
bash AI stocks and walk away. Stick with
me. Let's talk about what most investors
should actually do, especially if you
want to avoid the painful lessons that
come with chasing hype. First, let's be
clear. Keep dollar cost averaging. If
you invested in the QQQ at the peak of
2000 to today, you'd have seen an 80%
drop initially, and you still would have
made 14.5% per year on your money over a
25-y year period. That strategy still
works long term. If you've been
investing steadily into the broad market
ETFs like VO, don't stop just because
the market feels frothy. You need to
have that discipline when it's falling.
But here's the key. Be cautious about
putting extra money when valuations are
stretched. Just because the market is up
doesn't mean it's a great time to throw
in more than usual. This is the time to
be selective. If you've got extra cash
to invest, start looking at undervalued
individual companies. Companies with
strong balance sheets, consistent cash
flow, low debt, and ones that you can
figure out a reasonable amount of what
they'll make in the future. You've got
to use our stock analyzer tool to be
able to then say, "Here are my
assumptions about the future. What's the
company worth to me today? The best
opportunities are rarely popular. And
don't sleep on small cap stocks either.
Historically, small caps have
outperformed after big bull runs in
large tech. Why? Because markets rotate.
When the money comes out of small cap,
it goes to big large cap companies.
Those stocks fly high. These ones stay
low. What's hot eventually cools off and
what's ignored comes roaring back.
That's what most investors miss. It's
not about finding the next big thing.
It's about sticking to your principles
and paying a great price for a great
business. Now, let me level with you.
The AI bubble will probably burst at
some point. And it's super important to
get this knowledge of principal driven
investing and the skill to value stocks
before the market turns. In this next
video, I'm going to show you how we do
it so that you're prepared to act when
others are panicking. The video is
linked right on your screen. Don't miss
it. This is how you get ready for your
moment. Thank you for your time.