Paul Tudor Jones: ‘It feels like 1999’ as ingredients are in place for a dot-com bubble environment
Oct. 06, 2025 10:41 AM ET
By: Monica L Correa, SA News Editor
Current market conditions feel like it’s 1999, according to Paul Tudor Jones, Tudor Investment Corporation founder and CIO and Robin Hood Foundation founder and board member.
During a CNBC interview, Tudor Jones said that while this comparison to the dot-com bubble period wasn’t made lightly, “all the ingredients are in place” for a similar market environment.
Tudor Jones said that investors should position themselves as if it’s October 1999.
“Remember, the Nasdaq ( COMP:IND) doubled between October '99 and March 2000,” he said. “So, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably not a chicken.”
This perspective suggested both opportunity and caution. While acknowledging the potential for significant gains, Tudor Jones noted that participating in such a market requires “really happy feet” because “there will be a really, really bad end to it.”
He added that, unlike 1999, when the Federal Reserve was implementing rate hikes, today’s market is anticipating rate cuts. The contrast extends to fiscal policy as well. While 1999-2000 featured a budget surplus, today’s economy operates with a 6% budget deficit.
Tudor Jones describes this combination of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies as “a brew that we haven’t seen since.”
“We’re in a period that’s conducive for massive price appreciation in a variety of assets,” he said, but cautioned that such appreciation isn’t guaranteed and would require specific conditions to materialize.
Comparing leverage metrics between now and 1999, Jones noted that current levels might actually be higher than those preceding the dot-com bubble when factoring in leveraged ETFs alongside traditional margin debt. For prices to elevate further, Jones believes we would need “a speculative frenzy” driven by increased retail buying and institutional participation.
“It’s not going to go up without flows and without a story. The story’s there.”
When identifying potential winners in this market environment, Jones pointed to several asset classes showing strong performance. Gold ( GLD) (up approximately 46-47%), Bitcoin ( BTC-USD) (estimated 50-60% increase), and a retail flow basket of “meme stocks” (up 67-68%) represent areas of significant growth.
His preferred combination includes “gold, crypto, probably the Nasdaq ( COMP:IND),” adding that “whatever the fastest horse is at this point in time probably has a good chance of being that on Dec 31.”
Jones also expressed some concern about the “circularity” of arrangements between companies like AMD ( AMD) and Nvidia ( NVDA) in the AI sector, suggesting these interconnected relationships make him “nervous.” |
