Altimeter Capital founder and CEO Brad Gerstner said Friday the recent pullback in technology shares is a healthy correction after a monthslong surge. “The Nasdaq’s gone up 40% off the bottom in April. The market was kind of looking for a reason for a breather,” Gerstner said on CNBC’s ” Money Movers .” “This week, what you saw across the market is everybody looking for an excuse to sell the trade. I think it’s healthy. We’re taking some of the air out of the bubble. There’s a wall of worry that stands in front of us.” The broader market sold off sharply this week driven by major artificial intelligence players amid fears about elevated tech sector valuations. The S & P 500 is down almost 3% week to date, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq have lost 5%. Gerstner said Altimeter’s position in Nvidia going into earnings was as large as it had ever been, but the firm trimmed overall exposure last week as the rally in tech shares gathered steam. Nvidia is set to report earnings on Nov. 19. “We rolled back our overall exposures at the end of last week because we felt like the market was pretty pumped up,” he said. “We see the consumer weakening, like everybody else sees, and I think the market could take a breather into the end of the year ahead of Q4 earnings.” Even so, Gerstner pushed back on the idea that the market is in bubble territory. He likened the current artificial-intelligence boom to past technological “supercycles” that ultimately exceeded expectations despite interim pullbacks. “My experience living through three supercycles — internet, social media, and cloud — they all ended up far bigger than we thought,” he said. “We’re going through this digestion phase. I think digestion is good, because that prevents the bubble that everybody was worried was forming. I don’t think we’re in a bubble.”
