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Cue Prince. Once again, it appears that markets are partying like it’s 1999. Prince’s 1983 song was financially prophetic. In 2000, it would be “party over, oops, out of time!” Therefore, everyone should live life to the full the year before. That’s just what happened 16 years later. Current comparisons to the epic melt-up in dot-com stocks look reasonable.

As the world contemplates the phenomenal growth of Nvidia Corp., whose market worth has just surged by more than $275 billion in response to its ongoing surge in profits, thoughts turn not only to dot-coms but the Great Crash of 1929 and even the 49er Gold Rush.