If something is going to unsettle the great bull market of 2026 soon, Goldman Sachs strategists have found two possible triggers.

The analysis: Goldman Sachs strategist Ben Snider warned in a new note that “the conditions that have marked the ends of past bull markets remain mostly absent today, although some yellow flags have recently begun to appear.”

There are two recurring dynamics that typically characterize the end of high-valuation, high-concentration bull markets, according to Snider’s work.

The first is an excess of speculative risk-taking that shifts the distribution of market outcomes to the downside. The second is a deteriorating fundamental backdrop for companies that has historically included a rate-tightening Federal Reserve and a weakening outlook for earnings growth.

Read more: How to protect your portfolio from an AI bubble

Snider doesn’t think these conditions are strongly in place yet. However, we may be creeping toward them.

While he noted that robust strength in the artificial intelligence trade is a sign of excess speculation, sentiment seems less extreme than in past periods when the market was overextended. For example, retail trading activity remains below historical and recent highs. And IPO and deal activity have been light relative to past exuberant cycles.

Snider appeared most concerned with the outlook for interest rates as being a deal breaker for the bulls.

“The increase in energy prices resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz should result in weaker consumer spending, more pressure on profit margins, higher inflation, and less Fed easing than we had expected coming into the year,” Snider explained.

“Although our economists’ base case remains constructive, the downside risks to the economic outlook also threaten to create the conditions of tightening monetary policy and growth disappointments that have characterized the ends of past overextended markets,” he added.

Read more: How the Fed rate decision affects your bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and investments

The market backdrop: The stock market has been on an absolute tear over the past month. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) has surged 9.2% year to date, notching its eighth consecutive weekly gain last week — the longest winning streak since December.

The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) all sit at record highs.

The fuel driving the market remains AI optimism and a strong outlook for corporate profits, plain and simple. Nvidia (NVDA), Micron (MU), Sandisk (SNDK), and Alphabet (GOOGL) are leading the charge in markets right now as Wall Street bets that the artificial intelligence build-out is the most powerful profit engine this economy has ever seen.