AI Earnings Date: Why August 26th Matters for Stocks

Rickards pinpoints August 26th as the date the final domino could drop. This is when AI companies like Nvidia, Meta, and Coreweave release their earnings statements. He argues that a single earnings miss could be the pin that pricks the bubble. He draws a historical parallel to March 20, 2000, when Barron’s published an article called Burning Up warning that at least 50 dotcom companies would run out of money within 12 months. Within a week, stocks began to crater. Pets.com, which had IPO’d just one month earlier, plummeted 67% within a month and was bankrupt within nine months.

Rickards also points to September 28, 2007, when NetBank collapsed, marking the beginning of the subprime mortgage cascade. The Minsky Moment always takes everyone by surprise, he says. One day the market is beginning to soar. The next day, a single sobering report comes out and reality sets in.

Rickards draws a direct historical parallel to March 20, 2000, when Barron’s published “Burning Up,” an article warning that at least 50 dotcom companies would run out of money within 12 months. Within a week, earnings misses proved Barron’s was right. Stocks began to crater. Pets.com, which had IPO’d just one month earlier, plummeted 67% within a month and was bankrupt within nine months. eToys.com went from $77 a share to $1. Webvan went from $30 to $0.06.

The Nasdaq eventually crashed nearly 80% and didn’t recover for 15 years. The parallel Rickards draws is specific: a single earnings date can be the catalyst that pricks a bubble.

The August 26th date is real in the sense that major AI companies do report earnings around that time. Nvidia, Meta, Coreweave, and other AI-exposed companies release their financial statements, and the results will either confirm or challenge the bubble thesis. If earnings disappoint, Rickards argues, the sell-off could cascade quickly.

The counterargument is that earnings dates happen every quarter without triggering crashes. What makes this one different, in Rickards’ view, is the extreme concentration of the S&P 500 in AI stocks and the unprecedented valuation levels. The top 10 companies in the S&P 500 are more overvalued than they were in the 1990s, according to Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Asset Management.

Rickards also draws a parallel to December 25, 1989, when the Bank of Japan raised interest rates during the height of the Japanese technology and real estate boom. Within days, the entire Japanese stock market began to implode, and it did not recover for nearly 35 years. The pattern is always the same: the Minsky Moment takes everyone by surprise. One day the market is soaring, and the next day a single sobering report comes out and reality sets in.

Rickards attributes this blindness to what psychologists call “extrapolation bias,” the tendency to believe that because something has happened in the recent past, it is likely to continue into the future. He saw this firsthand when he negotiated the bailout for Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund run by Nobel Prize winners and mathematicians with IQs over 150. They assumed the future would look like the past, and their fund nearly took down the entire U.S. economy. Rob Arnott, an investor who has authored over 150 academic publications, has called the idea of infinite AI growth “a classic example of a big market delusion… just like the dot-com era.” A survey from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 90% of firms said AI has had no impact on employment or productivity, undercutting the assumption of exponential AI adoption.

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Where to Learn More

For the complete analysis, read our AI Black Paper review covering Jim Rickards’ full thesis on the AI Minsky Moment.

For a deeper dive into the bubble thesis, see our analysis of AI bubble warning signs.

Learn more about the AI Minsky Moment framework in our dedicated explainer.

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This is not financial advice. Always do your own research before investing.