Market returns in 2023 have been primarily bolstered by gains in the tech sector, specifically from those companies powered by a combination of demand and investor excitement over artificial intelligence.
Nvidia is perhaps the best example of this; the tech company makes the chips that make AI possible, and through earnings beats and rosy forecasts, added more than $200 billion to its market cap in a very short period of time.
Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives thinks that, boosted by AI, the markets are on the cusp of a "1995 moment."
Celebrity investor Jim Cramer agrees.
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"While valuations in tech will be front and center, we continue to believe AI is driving the tech sector to a '1995 moment' with a long runway of growth ahead that we have not seen since the 1990s," Ives said. "Many tech skeptics will point to today as a '1999 moment' -- we strongly disagree."
Ives is referring to the infamous dot-com bubble -- 1995-'97 saw the lead-up to the bubble, which ran from '98 until the markets crashed in 2000.
The dot-com bubble was fueled by largely speculative investment into tech companies (specifically, those with a "dot-com" after their name), all because of a frenzy of internet-boosted excitement among investors.
Cramer, who has been a big advocate for AI stocks recently, agreed with Ives' evaluation of the tech sector, to a point.
"While I think all of this will happen, I do not think the benefits will be across the board in the enterprise software industry," Cramer said. "Yet the market trades that way."
