Analysis
Even Wall Street's most credentialed bears aren't willing to bet against AI stocks yet, according to The Information. Steve Eisman, the investor who famously shorted subprime mortgage bonds ahead of the 2008 crash, calls the AI supply chain 'fragile' because it leans on two cash-burning labs -- but he hasn't shorted a single AI name. His most aggressive move so far was selling his Oracle shares over its OpenAI exposure, not opening a short position against the trade itself.
The hesitation comes even after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a deliberate, global slowdown in AI development this month, citing safety risks including the possibility that AI-directed agent swarms could take over parts of the internet within six to twelve months. Semiconductor stocks dipped on the remarks during that trading session, according to CNBC, but Wall Street analysts broadly held their view that AI infrastructure spending stays on an upward path regardless.
“That's a meaningfully different signal than retail sentiment or analyst price targets, which can lag real conviction by months.”
What makes the non-shorting notable is precedent: professional short sellers with real track records calling bubbles -- Eisman among them -- have historically moved ahead of a turn, not after one, when they see it coming. Their continued absence from the AI short book is itself informative, suggesting the smart-money read is that valuations, however stretched, aren't yet detached enough from underlying revenue growth to justify the risk of shorting into a still-rising market. That's a meaningfully different signal than retail sentiment or analyst price targets, which can lag real conviction by months.
The risk this obscures: short sellers waiting for a cleaner entry point doesn't mean the trade is safe, only that the timing isn't obvious yet -- Eisman's own 'fragile' framing is a bear case sitting unexercised, not a bull case. A single disappointing earnings print from Nvidia, Microsoft or Alphabet could be the catalyst that moves bears from watching to acting, and that shift, when it comes, tends to happen fast rather than gradually.