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Jeremy Grantham Calls U.S. Stocks 'The Most Expensive Market in American History'

Jeremy Grantham is warning that soaring artificial intelligence valuations have pushed the U.S. stock market to its most expensive level in American history. The assessment places AI-driven enthusiasm at the center of…

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Fathimath Shaira
Malé · 3 min read
27 June 2026Markets desk
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Jeremy Grantham is warning that soaring artificial intelligence valuations have pushed the U.S. stock market to its most expensive level in American history. The assessment places AI-driven enthusiasm at the center of what he describes as a historically extreme stretch in prices across U.S. equities.

A Price Warning, Not a Technology Verdict

Grantham's argument is about valuation, not about whether artificial intelligence will ultimately deliver. Soaring AI-related prices have, in his view, carried the entire U.S. market to a level he describes as the most expensive it has ever been — a claim that sets current conditions above every prior historical peak.

The distinction matters commercially: even a genuinely important technology can drive prices to levels that outrun the underlying business reality beneath them.

The AI Driver Behind Historic Prices

AI valuations are, by Grantham's account, the specific force pulling U.S. stock prices into historically unprecedented territory. Enthusiasm around the technology has lifted prices broadly across the U.S. market, not within a contained sector alone.

That framing shifts the investor question from whether AI matters to whether the prices now assigned to it are defensible — and Grantham's answer is that history offers no comparable benchmark for where those prices currently stand.

What Investors Are Left Weighing

The warning carries no specific timeline, but the historical framing delivers its own signal. A market described as the most expensive in American history is, by definition, in territory it has never before occupied.

The practical exposure is direct: U.S. equity valuations built around AI optimism are dependent on that optimism continuing to justify price levels that no prior moment in American market history has matched.

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Key takeaways

Frequently asked

What exactly is Jeremy Grantham warning about?

He is warning that AI-driven valuations have pushed U.S. equities to the most expensive level in American history, a claim about prices rather than about AI's underlying technological value.

Is Grantham saying artificial intelligence will fail?

No; his argument is strictly about valuation, noting that even a genuinely important technology can drive prices beyond the underlying business reality.

Why does Grantham consider AI the cause of these historic prices?

By his account, enthusiasm around AI has lifted prices broadly across the entire U.S. market rather than within a single contained sector, pulling valuations into unprecedented territory.

Did Grantham give a timeline for when the market might correct?

No; the warning carries no specific timeline, though he frames the market as being in territory it has never before occupied.

What is the practical risk for investors according to the article?

U.S. equity valuations built around AI optimism depend on that optimism continuing to justify price levels that no prior moment in American market history has matched.