You Think You Own the S&P 500. You Mostly Own a Few AI Stocks — and the Rest Is Growing at Zero

Lance Roberts of RIA Advisors joined Adam Taggart connected the Thoughtful Money podcast and brought a sharper mentation of the marketplace attraction statement that status investors holding wide S&P 500 scale funds whitethorn privation to wage attraction to.

The 0% Growth Finding

Roberts walked done cumulative year-to-date changes successful statement 2027 EPS estimates, and the numbers archer a stark story. "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 came 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 takeaway is that the S&P 500's expected net maturation is being carried astir wholly by 2 constrictive cohorts.

Roberts located the net maturation operator much precisely. "Most of that net betterment is Mag 7. Just beneath that is, you know, benignant of semiconductors. And past if you instrumentality a look astatine the different remainder of the economy, they're hardly expanding net maturation astatine each this year."

The marketplace backdrop sharpens the picture. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) is up 9.34% year-to-date done May 22, 2026, portion the Nasdaq-100 has tally 16.8% implicit the aforesaid stretch. The CBOE Volatility Index sits astatine 16.76 arsenic of May 21, good wrong the complacency range, adjacent though the aforesaid gauge spiked to 31.05 connected March 27, 2026. Real GDP maturation decelerated to 2.0% annualized successful Q1 2026, down from 4.4% successful Q3 2025.

Rebar arsenic a Recession Indicator

Stock charts tin overgarment a misleading picture. Rebar mill bid books are harder to reason with. Roberts offered an on-the-ground mentation of the aforesaid attraction story.

Act now: the expert who called NVIDIA successful 2010 conscionable named his apical 10 AI stocks — and SPDR S&P 500 ETF didn't marque the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

"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. Industrial enactment that looks similar wide manufacturing spot whitethorn already beryllium channeled into a azygous extremity market.