Scott Galloway
Professor of marketing at NYU Stern and author of bestselling books including The Four and The Algebra of Wealth.
“Investors separated the companies who are buying compute from those who sell it. The ones that sell it got hit hard, and the ones that buy it seem to be fine. It's an AI break, not a market break. … The S&P 500 is 500 stocks, but it's basically one bet right now. And AI infrastructure spending is expected to top a trillion dollars. And so if the music stops, it's not that the party ended. It's that the neighbors called the cops. And the question is, once the cops leave, does the music start again?”
Prof G Markets · Money & Markets · November 2026
Context
Elson and Galloway were trying to explain why chip and memory stocks fell hard after the midterms. Galloway frames the selloff as concentration risk in AI rather than a verdict on the whole market.
Transcript
…and memory stocks. So the notes here, the election was the match, not the kindling. Chip and memory stocks had already lost about $4 trillion since October 6th. And it looks like Qualcomm and ARM added to the pain. And the semis are still about, you know, they're still up about 30% this year. Yeah,
that's the other thing. Who cares? You're fine. The stock market's up 8.5%. I mean, it's crisis on Wall Street as we go from 9% year-to-date returns to 8.5%. Like, I'm okay with that. That's fine.
Another kind of simple way for trying to be reductive here is investors separated the companies who are buying compute from those who sell it. And the ones that sell it got hit hard. And the ones that buy it seem to be fine. And that it's an AI break, not a market break. And JP Morgan says 41 AI link names are about 49% of the SP above 1929 to 2000 peaks. So this just might be the market's way of saying the concentration risk is scary. So we're going to unconcentrate it, if you will. So the SP 500 is 500 stocks, but it's basically one bed right now. And AI infrastructure spending is expected to top a trillion dollars. And so if the music stops, it's not that the party ended. It's it's it the neighbors called the cops, right? And the question is, once the cops leave, does the music start again?
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