S&P 500 Other Than AI Infrastructure Is Growing at 0%. Lance Roberts Warns What Happens if the AI Boom Stumbles.

3 days ago 13

Jeremy Phillips

Mon, May 25, 2026 astatine 7:31 AM CDT 4 min read

Strip AI infrastructure and vigor from the S&P 500's guardant net representation and maturation collapses to zero. That's the azygous astir uncomfortable fig from Lance Roberts's caller quality connected Adam Taggart's Thoughtful Money, and it reframes everything astir marketplace hazard close now.

Roberts, main concern strategist astatine RIA Advisors, walked done what helium called the attraction ladder hiding wrong the index. "Here's the cumulative year-to-date alteration successful statement 2027 EPS estimates AI infrastructure stocks, 32%. Energy is 19%. S&P 500 is 8%," helium said. Then helium delivered the punchline: "If you look down astatine the bottom, the grey line, S&P 500 ex-AI infrastructure and energy, it's 0% growth."

The Index Number Hides the Engine

An 8% assistance successful 2027 EPS estimates sounds healthy. Spread evenly crossed 500 companies, it would beryllium mean firm progress. But it isn't dispersed evenly. Most of the net betterment is concentrated successful the Magnificent 7, with semiconductors conscionable below. The remainder of the system is hardly expanding net maturation astatine each this year.

That maps cleanly onto what prices show. The S&P 500 is up 9% twelvemonth to day arsenic of past Friday's close. The Nasdaq-100 is up 16.8% implicit the aforesaid stretch. NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) unsocial has added 15% twelvemonth to day and 62% implicit the trailing year. The market-cap-weighted scale is doing precisely what its net revisions suggest: leaning connected a fistful of names that people AI infrastructure cash.

The Rebar Example

Roberts made the dependence factual successful a mode I support reasoning about. "If I'm a institution that builds rebar oregon makes rebar, I'm sold retired close present conscionable trying to merchantability rebar to radical gathering information centers... But the extremity purchaser is the information center," helium said. A alloy fabricator does not surface arsenic an AI stock. Its bid publication tells a antithetic story.

That extends to interconnects, cooling, powerfulness delivery, procreation equipment, transformers, switchgear, concrete, fiber, and concern REITs renting the onshore underneath it all. Bureau of Economic Analysis information shows the accusation assemblage grew from $265.0 cardinal successful profits successful 2024 Q1 to $317.7 cardinal successful 2025 Q4, portion retail profits drifted successful a constrictive set of $390.2 cardinal to $422.6 cardinal crossed the aforesaid window. The superior is flowing wherever Roberts says it is.

The expert who called NVIDIA successful 2010 conscionable named his apical 10 stocks. Get them present FREE.

As helium enactment it, "What markets are pricing is the interaction of that CapEx spending connected the system that generates the earnings." The marketplace is pricing the CapEx impulse from AI arsenic the motor of the broader economy.

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