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The dot com bubble of the late 1990s stemmed from the tremendous capital expenditures for laying fiber-optic cable in anticipation of the need from the country’s new internet. It wasn’t a mistake to make the investments. However, the problem was that the demand and profits did not come soon enough to realize adequate profits. Most went bankrupt, sending their inflated stocks crashing. The installed fiber was sold for pennies on the dollar to a new generation of companies who profited from what became today’s robust internet. This scenario is the primary risk of investing in the current AI boom.

Moderna (MRNA) skyrocketed today, more than doubling, up 177 percent, on the news of a successful Phase 3 melanoma trial. The combination of Moderna's vaccine with Merck's Keytruda significantly reduced the risk of melanoma returning or spreading compared with Keytruda alone. This was the first successful late-stage trial of an individualized mRNA cancer vaccine and validates Moderna's mRNA oncology platform for other cancers.

Qualcomm (QCOM) is being added to the Sound Advice portfolio. A complete explanation will follow in the next issue of Sound Advice scheduled to be published on the first of September, but we are adding QCOM now as a timely investment.

The stock price is down 34 percent from its peak of $250 in early June and is...

It’s a little scary. After 17 years, it is natural to worry if the bull market may be getting tired soon. Price/earnings (P/E) ratios, the standard measure of valuations, are at record highs. We can’t even measure the P/E of the Russell 2000 stocks because more than 40 percent don’t even have positive earnings. The Wall Street darlings, the so-called Magnificent Seven, are at astronomical P/E ratios but they are now taking on debt to finance monumental capital expenditures on data centers. The AI race is looking more and more like the Dot Com bubble of the late 1990s.