Motley Fool and a finance YouTuber warn a stock market crash may be coming
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
Motley Fool predicted a stock market crash on Nov 5, citing high oil prices, inflation and rate hikes.
The S&P 500 has doubled since 2023, so investors weigh correction versus crash.
Background
The S&P 500 is a benchmark index of large US stocks, and it has more than doubled from its 2022 bear-market low, gaining 100% since the start of 2023 on the back of AI stocks. Against that run-up, The Motley Fool's Anthony Di Pizio argued the index hasn't been this expensive since the dot-com bubble and warned that high oil prices, rising inflation, interest rate hikes and a potential AI slowdown could derail the bull market. The discussion follows the Federal Reserve's September 2026 rate increase and comes as sources describe a period of stock and bond market volatility and economic unknowns in the US and broadly.
How it unfolded
- Sep 3, 1929The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its peak of 381.17.
- Jul 8, 1932The Dow closed at 41.22, an 89 percent loss from the 1929 peak; $1,000 held at the peak was worth about $108 before dividends.
- Nov 23, 1954The Dow finally closed above its 1929 high again.
- 2000The dot-com bubble burst, the largest crash of the past 50 years, with the market losing 54% from peak to trough.
- 2013The market recovered its previous value after the dot-com crash.
- Mar 2022 - Aug 2023During the Fed's last rate-hiking cycle, the S&P 500 suffered a bear-market decline of more than 20%.
- Sep 2026The Federal Reserve raised interest rates at its September meeting.
- Oct 28, 2026 -29, 1929The Dow fell nearly 13 percent, then nearly 12 percent, in two days.
- Nov 4, 2026A video post asked "Stock Market Crash on November 4? Investors Beware!"
- Nov 5, 2026A Motley Fool article predicted a stock market crash is coming, citing high oil prices, rising inflation, rate hikes and a potential AI slowdown.
Key terms
- S&P 500
- A stock market index tracking the performance of 500 large US companies listed on American exchanges.
- bear-market
- A downward market trend in which prices fall over a period of time.
- dot-com bubble
- A stock market bubble of the late 1990s driven by Internet adoption and soaring valuations of dot-com startups, which collapsed after peaking in 2000.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Analysts
- Motley Fool's Anthony Di Pizio says the S&P 500 hasn't been this expensive since the dot-com bubble, and high oil prices, rising inflation, rate hikes and a potential AI slowdown could derail the bull market.
- Caution
- Stock market educator Pushkar Raj Thakur points to a sharp NASDAQ fall, a massive decline in Google, cash flow concerns at Meta and major tech layoffs, and asks whether this is a correction or the beginning of a bigger crash.
- Expert
- Covenant Wealth Advisors' Mark Fonville defines a correction as a drop of more than 10% but less than 20% and a crash as 20% or more, noting the S&P 500 has fallen 20%+ on 13 occasions since 1950, averaging -32.73% over 338 days.
- Analysts
- Research from asset manager Schroders, cited by myLIFE, found declines of 20% or more occur on average every four to six years, while 10% drops occurred in 30 of the past 52 years.
Still unverified
Whether a crash is actually coming is presented as a prediction, not a confirmed event; the November 4 crash question is framed as a warning to investors.