Shades of 2000?

With the stock market stumbling a bit early in 2014, some investors are wondering if we're in for a repeat of 2000, when after years of growth, the markets flamed out spectacularly. After rising by nearly 30 percent last year, the S&P 500 has barely poked its head above water this year, increasing by just 0.89 percent.

Like that year, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index has been suffering the worst of all the major indexes, down 6 percent since peaking in early March. In 2000, the Nasdaq dropped 15 percent in a single week.

But there are some key differences as well. The market doesn't appear to be as overheated as it was in the 1990s. So far during the Obama administration, the S&P 500 is up 95 percent; at a similar time during the Clinton administration, it was up almost twice as much, at 180 percent. History might repeat itself in some measure, but it will never repeat itself exactly.