Milyarder Leon Cooperman, bugünkü yapay zeka patlamasının 1970 'lerden kalma büyük bir patlamayı yansıttığını söylüyor — "Nifty Fifty" çöküşünden bir ders

Billionaire Leon Cooperman says today's AI boom echoes a big bust from the 1970s — a lesson from the 'Nifty Fifty' crash

Rinna Diamantakos

Sat, August 22, 2026 at 2:30 PM GMT+3 4 min read

Billionaire Leon Cooperman is issuing a stark warning for investors, laying out a troubling outlook for the U.S. economy that includes a recession sometime within the next year.

Speaking to CNBC, the famed investor and former Goldman Sachs CEO said today's market is reminiscent of past boom-and-bust cycles, including the 1970s Nifty Fifty era crash.

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"I think that we're going to have a recession sometime next year, and that will probably bring the market down," Cooperman told CNBC, according to Business Insider, adding that he thinks earnings estimates for the S&P 500 are mispriced.

Cooperman says signs indicate that the current economic cycle is coming to an end and stocks could be hit as AI hype begins to die down.

A journey back to the Nifty Fifty crash

Cooperman told CNBC that investors are ignoring the key threat of higher inflation, specifically the recent increase in oil prices. On Aug. 17, Brent crude — the international benchmark for oil — was trading 22% higher from levels prior to the start of the Iran war.

Cooperman argued higher inflation poses a risk to stock prices — drawing a comparison to the Nifty Fifty crash.

The Nifty Fifty was a group of 50 stocks considered that were, during the 1950s and 1960s, considered infallible. Household names like McDonald's, Polaroid and Disney were so attractive to investors that they believed they should always be bought and never sold, regardless of price.

Then the U.S. stock market entered a bear market between 1973 to 1974. Inflation was on the rise, interest rates were increasing and an oil crisis hit. The Nifty 50 significantly underperformed, with some stocks in the group dropping as much as 80% to 90%.

"The three most dangerous words in investment land vocabulary are: 'It's different this time,'" Cooperman told CNBC, referring to the current investment landscape. He also said he was "negative" on markets overall and is avoiding tech stocks in particular.

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How Wall Street is feeling

Cooperman's comments come as the S&P 500 continues to trade near record highs. According to the latest update from FactSet, the benchmark index is on track to post year-over-year earnings growth of over 50% for the second quarter. If it happens, that would be the highest pace of earnings growth since 2021, amid the pandemic boom.

Wall Street has remained confident in continued growth, specifically in the enduring demand for AI. Some investors however, have issued similar warnings as Cooperman about the stock bubble. Famed "Big Short" investor Michael Burry has warned that the AI boom bears similarities to previous market bubbles, specifically the dot-com era in the mid-1990s to early 2000s.

The European Central Bank has also issued a warning, saying history shows the AI boom could lead to a sharp downturn.

"Economic research on past technological revolutions points to a worrisome conclusion: a correction of current stock market valuations is likely," the economists wrote in a blog post on Monday.

In March, Cooperman told Fox Business he saw a recession hitting the U.S. as soon as late 2026.

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Billionaire Leon Cooperman says today's AI boom echoes a big bust from the 1970s — a lesson from the 'Nifty Fifty' crash

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