Nvidia Leadership Crisis Drags on U.S. Stock Futures, Pressures AI Trade
Nvidia shares fell sharply in premarket trading as the company’s board weighed the future of its leader Jensen Huang, putting the brakes on a rally in artificial-intelligence stocks and dragging U.S. futures and Asian equities lower.
Shares in the company at the heart of the AI ecosystem tumbled over 8% in premarket trade, putting the stock on track to lose around $590 billion in market value. Nvidia’s board is readying to oust its co-founder Huang following the revelation of an extramarital affair with an Nvidia employee in addition to one with an alleged Chinese spy, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Investors await clarity on Huang’s position, with news expected later Thursday. The timing is uncomfortable for the broader tech market, said Saxo strategist Charu Chanana.
“The AI trade was already facing questions around infrastructure spending, financing and profitability. The key question is whether Nvidia’s problems simply redistribute AI spending towards competitors or begin to disrupt spending itself,” Chanana said.
Nvidia’s fall dragged futures for major U.S. indexes lower. Nasdaq futures dropped 0.6% and S&P 500 futures fell 0.3%. Contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average nudged up 0.1%. The crisis around Huang compounded already-nervous investors’ fears around the future of the AI trade. U.S. cloud-computing stocks largely fell premarket, though shares in Nvidia’s chip-making peers were mixed–Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom were both in the green premarket, while Intel, Micron and Sandisk all slid.
In Asia, South Korea’s heavyweight chip companies were mixed. SoftBank Group shares slid over 3% in Tokyo. Stock indexes in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Shanghai all fell.
European chip makers fell sharply, with makers of semiconductor manufacturing equipment also posting losses. ASML, Europe’s most valuable company, dropped close to 3%. However, Europe’s tech-light stock indexes benefited from the broader investor rotation away from AI. The continent-wide Stoxx 600 rose 0.3% to trade at record highs.
Away from equity markets, Treasury yields ticked higher as traders returned after the U.S. Veterans Day holiday. Investors continue to bank on a December Federal Reserve rate hike, with 10-year yields nudging higher to trade close to 5%.
Oil prices edged higher as traders assessed diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts in both the Middle East and Ukraine. Benchmark Brent crude contracts rose around 0.2% to trade below $93 a barrel.
The dollar held steady, close to the 19-month highs hit Wednesday, while gold contracts fell back below $4,000 a troy ounce. Bitcoin continued to struggle, falling 2% to trade around $72,850.
For the day ahead, investors look for U.S. home sales data for October, as well as appearances from a host of Fed policymakers including New York Fed President John Williams, Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack and Governor Michael Barr. Manufacturer of chip-making equipment Applied Materials will report earnings after the bell.
Write to Joe Stonor at josephmichael.stonor@wsj.com