Stocks Edge Lower Following Nvidia Leadership Change: Stocks edged lower overnight as investors assessed the broader fallout from Jensen Huang’s departure from Nvidia. S&P 500 futures fell 0.2%, although they remain around 3% above last week’s lows. Nvidia plunged more than 14% during Thursday’s session before buyers stepped in, limiting its closing loss to 4.3% at $166.19 per share. The decline took this week’s loss in market value to approximately $494 billion, although Nvidia remains the world’s second-most valuable company, narrowly ahead of Microsoft.
Colette Kress Takes Over as Interim Nvidia CEO: Huang has stepped down as CEO, president and a director. Harvey Jones becomes Nvidia’s first-ever board chair, while CFO Colette Kress takes over as interim CEO. Kress has reportedly challenged Huang over large investments and financing deals involving customers such as OpenAI and Lambda, raising questions about whether Nvidia will adopt a more cautious approach under her leadership. AMD gained around 5% as investors looked towards rival chipmakers, while SpaceX surrendered an opening gain of 6% to finish broadly flat.
Chip Investigation Intensifies US-China Tensions: Bloomberg reported that a Chinese company founded by Alice Huang procured smuggled AI chips installed at a Shanghai data centre linked to Megaspeed International. Megaspeed has denied wrongdoing. The investigations have intensified US national-security concerns and increased pressure for tighter restrictions on chip exports to China. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.6%, while the KOSPI declined 3.5%.
US Producer Inflation Takes Centre Stage: Today’s US producer-price inflation report at 13:30 London time has taken on greater importance following stronger-than-expected consumer-price figures. Headline producer prices are expected to rise by 0.4% month on month, with core prices forecast to increase by 0.3%. Another strong reading could reinforce expectations of a larger Federal Reserve rate increase in December.
Oil Rebound Adds Pressure to Bonds: Oil’s latest rebound has added pressure to government bonds, extending the sell-off sparked by inflation concerns earlier this week. Brent crude traded around $96.44 a barrel, while the UK 10-year government bond yield rose by roughly eight basis points to 5.31%. EUR/USD fell 0.25% to $1.1064.
Bitcoin and Gold Fall as Rate Expectations Rise: Bitcoin fell 3.7% to $68,863 as higher interest-rate expectations weighed on demand. MSCI’s decision to remove Strategy from its indices on 30 November also raised concerns about potential selling pressure on the major corporate Bitcoin holder. Gold fell around 3% yesterday to $3,872 before recovering towards $3,900 overnight, with a stronger dollar and rising yields continuing to weigh on the precious metal.
Economic Calendar
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US Producer Price Index: 13:30 London time
Key Market Moves Today
- S&P 500 Futures: -0.05% (7,612)
- Crude Oil: +0.16% ($88.90)
- Spot Gold: +0.42% ($3,894)
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