Charts of the Week: The Fastest V-Shaped Recovery Ever
Short summary
The S&P 500 rebounded from a 10% drop to a new high in just 11 sessions, marking the quickest V-shaped recovery on record. Big investors warn valuations look stretched, but higher cash supplies and record corporate profits may justify today’s lofty multiples. Meanwhile, semiconductors and AI infrastructure lead gains while software lags, and social media use has peaked globally except in North America.
- S&P 500 recovered from a 10% Iran-conflict drop to a new all-time high in just 11 trading sessions—the fastest V-shaped recovery ever.
- Buffett (sitting on $373B cash) and Paul Tudor Jones (citing a 252% market cap-to-GDP ratio vs. 170% in 2000) both warn valuations are stretched, with PTJ predicting a reversion could erase 30-35% of market value.
- Swollen money supply (M2 up ~30% in five years, $8T in money market funds, $6.7T Fed balance sheet) partly explains lofty multiples, while record corporate profit margins offer a counterargument.
- AI-cycle gains are concentrated in chips/infrastructure (NVIDIA, hyperscalers) while software valuations lag, echoing the chips-then-devices-then-apps pattern of the post-GFC mobile boom.
Full summary
The S&P 500 bounced back from a roughly 10% drop during the Iran conflict to hit an all-time high of 7,165.08 last Friday—just 11 trading sessions later. That’s the fastest V-shaped recovery on record. Investors barely felt the dip: the index is up about 30% year-over-year and nearly 9% in the past month. Yet Warren Buffett and Paul Tudor Jones both warn stocks look expensive. Buffett, sitting on $373 billion in cash at Berkshire Hathaway, says he’s not hunting for mere 5–6% gains. PTJ points out the market cap-to-GDP ratio sits at 252%, well above 2000’s 170% peak. He warns a mean reversion to 25-year P/E norms could wipe out 30–35% of market value, tanking tax revenues and widening deficits.
Low yields and abundant liquidity help explain today’s lofty multiples. Money market funds hold about $8 trillion—double pre-pandemic levels—and the Fed’s balance sheet stands at $6.7 trillion after COVID-era expansion. Roughly 30% of U.S. dollars in M2 were printed in the last five years. If you view the S&P as a price relative to dollars, that swollen money supply pushes valuations higher. On the flip side, corporate profits are at record margins and earnings forecasts run more than twice the long-term average. Software multiples alone have already drifted back to the prior decade’s mean.
Tech’s growth engine isn’t uniform. Semiconductor and AI-infrastructure stocks have led this cycle, while many pure-play software firms lag. That mirrors the post-GFC mobile boom: first chipmakers like Qualcomm, then handset platforms (Apple, Samsung), and finally apps and services (Google, Amazon). NVIDIA now occupies chip-leader status, and hyperscalers report revenue backlogs nearly doubled year-over-year in Q4. The missing piece is software beneficiaries—enterprise SaaS and consumer apps—catching up in valuation to justify the massive hardware investments. Whether history repeats itself or this AI wave breaks the pattern remains to be seen.