As if the sense of dot-com déjà vu wasn’t strong enough already.
On Thursday, investors mature enough (to employ a polite euphemism for “old,” and thereby spare myself the depressing reality of being 42) to remember the last major tech bubble emitted a wry chuckle to see Cisco at the top of the leaderboard.
In March of 2000, Cisco was (briefly) the most valuable company in the world. The market, in its infinite wisdom, bid up the shares to the point that Cisco was worth some $565 billion, more than Microsoft at the time.
It was all down hill from there. By May of 2000, Cisco was down 40% from the highs hit just a few months previous. When it was all said and done — i.e., when the proverbial dust settled on the bubble demolition in October of 2002 — Cisco was down 90% from its March 27, 2000 peak.
Fast forward a quarter century and Cisco, like Intel, is back. Just in general and back to record highs.
On the heels of a Wednesday evening beat and raise which included all manner of upbeat commentary on the company’s prospects in the AI ecosystem, Cisco soared more than 14% for what was on track to be its best day in nearly 15 years.
With Thursday’s advance, the stock was up more than 50% for 2026. Its 14-day RSI was nearly 88. It’s up six weeks running and more than 20% this week alone. I could go on. The superlatives are endless.
It’s difficult to overstate how grimly amusing this’ll seem to a lot of market veterans. Although Cisco was an exception among dot-com darlings in being a real company with real revenue and a real fundamental claim on “the future,” it’s nevertheless synonymous with the bust.
Assuming the market gods have a sense of humor (and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest they do), it’d be so very fitting if a melt-up in shares of Cisco was once again the bell at the top.
I should emphasize that there’s nothing implausible about the idea of Cisco capitalizing on demand from AI data center operators. This is just another example of market participants belatedly realizing that AI isn’t just Nvidia GPUs the same way human bodies aren’t just brains.
The question’s whether $9 billion in expected orders from the hyper-scalers during the company’s current fiscal year, and a for-now-rosy outlook for data center demand more generally, justifies the run-up in the stock.
I’m not the guy with the answer on that particular point. I’m just the guy with the dot-com déjà vu jokes which, happily, never get old for those old enough to appreciate them.
On Thursday, in an interview with CNBC, CEO Chuck Robbins conceded he doesn’t yet have “complete visibility” when it comes to bookings from hyper-scalers and other AI data center operators.
Nevertheless, Cisco “feel[s] good” about where things are headed. Tech, Robbins declared, is entering a “networking super-cycle.”
I knew you were my age.
I’m 43 and had a similar feeling. Probably part of why I love reading H’s perspective on things.
Only the most elderly of millennials can put this fine of a point on it, as it were.
I remember March of 2000 shaking my head watching yet another ATH on CNBC in the media room where I worked. It felt surreal but I was happy I owned Munder NetNet. A year later the company I worked for shut down, and my portfolio was being devastated. That was the first time Mr. Market punched me, and many others, in the face. But here’s the trick. Don’t sell the rise, sell the fall. That way there’s no second guessing. Currently, however, there is a major difference. Back then Greenspan blinked and started hiking. Now, the Feadury Secretary and his Sock Puppet have a mandate from the One to “Run it Hot.” At the 2000 top the NFCI was near 0. Now it’s -.50 and getting looser.