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The Austrian capital and financial market community has decided: The stock market taboo word of 2024 is "AI bubble". The hype surrounding companies and stocks that are particularly associated with the technological change surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) continued unabated in 2024. However, the rapid price and value developments of tech companies that are particularly in the spotlight due to AI developments are also fueling debate. Investors, analysts and academics are equally concerned about whether the trend could ultimately end in a burst AI bubble.
"AI leads to investment processes that cost enormous sums of money, and there is no guarantee that these costs can be amortised. Such findings support the definition of the term 'bubble'," categorises asset manager Wolfgang Matejka. Manuel Schleifer, Senior Equity Market Strategist at Raiffeisen Bank International AG, adds: "The valuations of the broad market are at times at the heights of dotcom times. In contrast to those days, however, the well-known market participants are largely companies with extremely profitable and, above all, already existing business models. Expectations are high, but not out of thin air."
"Hypes like this attract not only a lot of attention but also a lot of money. If it seems too risky, private investors should remember the strategy that always works: investing regularly, over the long term and with global diversification. In the long term, equities are the safest and most profitable asset class, and you will automatically invest in these trends. Given the global weighting of AI stocks, not too little at the moment", says Christoph Boschan, CEO of the Vienna Stock Exchange.
About the stock market taboo word
Every year since 2017, the Vienna Stock Exchange has asked the domestic financial community to nominate the Austrian stock market taboo word of the year. The jury's decision is based primarily on the topicality, relevance and linguistic significance of the words. This year's eighth stock market taboo word follows last year's winner "stagflation", which replaced "excess profits tax" (2022). Before that, the "specter of inflation" (2021) was a stock market taboo word. In the years before that, "corona-related" (2020), "Brexit" (2019), "punitive tariffs" (2018) and "negative interest rates" (2017) prevailed.
