Nvidia Stock Plummets in Pre-Market Trading Following Espionage Scandal
Down 6 percent
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is at the center of an espionage scandal.
Chiang Ying-ying/AP/dpa
Following last week’s sharp declines, many Asian stock markets rebounded on Monday. Taiwan, in particular, saw strong gains. However, a possible espionage scandal involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is causing fresh uncertainty.
Here’s what it’s all about
- Following the recent sell-off, several Asian stock markets rebounded significantly on Monday.
- The Taiwan Stock Exchange rose by nearly five percent, while Japan’s Nikkei gained 2.3 percent.
- An investigation into possible Chinese espionage involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is weighing on market sentiment.
Stock markets in the Far East started the new week on Monday with significant gains in some cases. In the wake of Friday’s rebound on the Nasdaq in New York, the sentiment in Asia was that bargain hunters were at work there for the time being, after the Democrats’ victory in the U.S. congressional elections the previous week had sent the global technology sector into turmoil.
The most significant gains were seen in Taiwan, where the market benefited from measures taken by local authorities to restore investor confidence—such as the introduction of restrictions on short selling. The TAIEX closed nearly five percent higher there. In the chip sector, TSMC and MediaTek led the Taiwanese market with significant gains.
However, the mood was dampened by investigations at Nvidia, after CEO Jensen Huang admitted to having an affair with a Chinese woman—much to the chagrin of the tech industry, there are speculations that she may have been a spy. U.S. futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock exchange were recently pushed into negative territory as a result. Nvidia shares recently lost nearly six percent of their value in after-hours trading.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 closed 2.3 percent higher at 58,775.50 points, though IT stocks did not significantly influence the market’s movement there. Meanwhile, on the South Korean stock exchange—which is particularly important for the tech sector—the KOSPI slipped 0.8 percent. Shares of memory chip manufacturers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics gave back much of their gains there.
Meanwhile, Chinese stock markets appeared largely unfazed by the turmoil on Monday. The CSI 300 Index, which tracks the 300 leading mainland stocks, closed with a slight gain, while the Hang Seng Index in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was last trading at the previous day’s level. The Australian S&P ASX 200 also showed little movement on Monday, closing at 9,029.69 points./tih/stk