BofA survey says AI stock rally still in “boom phase,” with investors watching for momentum risk

Artificial-intelligence related stocks have already run far, but a Bank of America survey indicates many investors still see the move as a “boom” rather than a fully overheated frenzy. In the bank’s readout, the key question was less whether the rally exists and more whether investors believe the next phase will be driven by fear of missing out rather than a shift into comfort or complacency.

The Bloomberg-reported survey results, carried by Yahoo Finance, found that the majority of investors believe the concern about missing further gains is continuing. The framing matters, because “fear of missing out” is often used to describe behavior in which investors keep buying or holding even after large price moves, not because fundamentals have necessarily changed overnight, but because they do not want to fall behind the market’s winners.

The same reporting characterizes the broader market mood as being in a boom phase rather than euphoria. Euphoria typically implies a stronger sense that prices have moved beyond what investors consider reasonable, while a boom phase suggests more conviction that the trend can persist, even if volatility remains part of the picture.

Bank of America did not provide, in the account summarized by Yahoo Finance, granular breakdowns such as which investor segments dominated the responses, what time window the survey covered, or whether respondents were primarily buy-side investors, sell-side firms, or individual investors. The post also does not indicate whether investors were asked about specific AI subsectors such as chips, cloud software, or data centers, versus AI exposure more broadly.

For companies with large AI-related market capitalization, sentiment can translate into financing and capital spending expectations. When investors believe the rally is still in a boom phase, it can support funding flows into AI infrastructure and related products, including power, networking, and high-performance computing capacity. At the same time, ongoing FOMO behavior can also raise the risk of sharper pullbacks if prices stop rising and investors decide the market has run ahead of near-term delivery.

From a sector standpoint, the “boom but not euphoria” distinction aligns with how many markets behave after an early surge in a new theme. Early on, investors often chase the narrative while companies scramble to align product roadmaps with demand. Later, the market can move into a period where investors still participate, but they begin to calibrate expectations around earnings visibility, contract timing, and the pace of adoption. The survey summary suggests investors may be closer to the latter than the former, but it does not establish whether that recalibration has begun.

What remains unclear from the published summary is how investors defined “boom phase” versus “euphoria,” or what concrete indicators the survey used to categorize those states. The reporting also does not specify whether survey responses reflected current valuations, expected earnings growth, or portfolio allocation targets, nor does it quantify the margin between bulls and skeptics.

Investors and market watchers will likely look next for whether the perception of continued FOMO holds as AI-related earnings results, guidance, and infrastructure spending plans roll in. If investors begin to report less fear of missing out, that could announcement diminishing marginal buyers and a more valuation-sensitive market. If FOMO remains dominant, the survey’s implication is that risk appetite could stay elevated, even as the rally matures.