Welcome to Staten News — where the most valuable chip company on the planet lost its founder on a Thursday and the retail crowd treated it like a sale rack.
Nvidia's board announced Thursday morning that Jensen Huang had resigned as president, CEO and director, effective immediately. CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO and keeps the CFO job. Harvey Jones becomes the company's first-ever board chair. The stock hit a new 52-week low early, clawed back, and closed down 4.3%, per CNBC.
For most of the session, Nvidia was on track to close under $4 trillion in market value for the first time since July 2025. It finished just above the line.
Barely.
🛒 The Dip Buyers Showed Up Early
Individual traders bought a net $111 million of Nvidia in the first 30 minutes of Thursday's session, per Vanda Research data cited by CNBC. That's more than 40 times a normal open and the biggest opening bid from retail Vanda has ever recorded. Nvidia was already the most-bought name in Vanda's universe Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and it accounted for 61% of all retail net buying this week.
Wall Street went the other way. Cantor Fitzgerald's CJ Muse kept his overweight rating but cut his price target from $350 to $250. Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon warned clients that when you find two ants in the kitchen, the best estimate of the total is not two.
Retail bought the founder discount. The analysts priced in more ants.
🧾 Everyone Nvidia Wrote a Check To Paid for It
The damage spread through the companies Nvidia has invested in. Intel and Marvell each fell more than 4% Thursday. Synopsys dropped 3% and Lumentum 5%. CoreWeave slid about 9%, and Nebius lost more than 19% after reporting earnings. Super Micro fell 12% after Semafor reported the Justice Department is looking at whether groups tied to the woman at the center of the Huang reports diverted its AI hardware to China.
AMD was the exception. As of Thursday, shares were up nearly 17% since Monday's open, per CNBC, on the theory that Nvidia's mess is AMD's sales pitch.
The indexes barely flinched. The S&P 500 lost 0.4% to 7,592.40, the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.4% to 25,366.09, and the Dow gave up 189.40 points to 52,297.09, per Zacks. The tell was under the hood. The Nasdaq printed 55 new highs and 267 new lows, and the VIX jumped 6.9% to 18.70.
🔥 Inflation Didn't Take the Week Off
Tuesday's CPI showed prices up 0.4% in October after 0.6% in September, per Labor Department data reported by Axios. Core CPI rose 0.3% for the third straight month, pushed by recreation, medical care, car insurance and airfares.
That 0.3% mattered more than usual. Hours before the release, Fed governor Christopher Waller said a half-point hike should be considered next month if October core came in at 0.3% or higher. It came in at exactly 0.3%. The two-year Treasury yield jumped 0.13 percentage points on Tuesday.
By Thursday's close, CME FedWatch had an 89% chance of a quarter-point hike in December, to a 4% to 4.25% range, per Zacks. Add Trump posting that the U.S. no longer needs a deal with Iran, with the blockade on Iranian oil exports still running, and energy was one of only two S&P sectors that finished green Thursday, up 1.5%.
Translation: the market lost its favorite CEO in the same week it got told money is about to cost more. The S&P shrugging both off is either strength or denial. The October producer price report lands Friday morning and gets a vote too.
🔮 Next Week's Calls
Predicted gainer: Nvidia (NVDA). The company reports third-quarter results Tuesday, Nov. 17, at about 1:20 p.m. PT, on the schedule it set before any of this. The person presenting those numbers has run Nvidia's finances since 2013. Janus Henderson's Jeremiah Buckley called the resignation a possible "clearing event," and nobody on the Street is arguing demand broke this week. Because a scandal doesn't change how many GPUs shipped last quarter. Possible? Yes. Guaranteed? Not with congressional hearings lining up and a proposed shareholder class action already filed.
Predicted loser: AMD (AMD). Nearly 17% in four sessions on somebody else's bad news. Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman told CNBC that if every customer turned to AMD tomorrow, AMD couldn't supply them. The story moved faster than the factories can. If Nvidia's quarter looks normal on Tuesday, the rotation money has a reason to drift back.
Also on the board: Anthropic plans to start trading on the Nasdaq as "ANT" on Nov. 19, and Nvidia has agreed to buy $10 billion of its stock right after the offering, per the amended prospectus CNBC cited. That's the first look at whether Nvidia under Kress keeps writing checks the way Nvidia under Huang did.
This is the week the market finds out whether it was paying for the chips or for the man.
Sources: CNBC Nvidia live updates, Zacks Stock Market News for Nov 13, Axios on October CPI, Nvidia CEO transition release
This is not financial advice. Always do your own research.
— The Bandicoots 📉🛒