Nvidia Shares Fall After Jensen Huang Exit, Analysts Warn

Stock indexes slipped in choppy trading on Friday, but major Wall Street averages remained on track for weekly gains despite tech-heavy selling and surging Treasury yields.

Nvidia shares fell more than 2% on Friday, extending a wider slide following the sudden exit of founder and CEO Jensen Huang after reports of two extramarital affairs, including a relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.

“Nvidia's pullback serves as a reminder of the concentration risk embedded in a market where a small number of mega- cap technology stocks have driven an outsized share of returns,” senior global strategist at Edward Jones Angelo Kourkafas said in a research note.

Small investors bought a net $111 million of Nvidia stock in the first 30 minutes of trading on Thursday, marking the stock’s largest opening on record and more than 40 times a normal start. Nvidia shares went into free fall on Thursday, falling as much as 14% at the open to their lowest level since June 2025, before clawing back nearly three-quarters of that drop to close down about 4%.

Analysts told CNBC that Huang’s exit could trigger a 20% correction in the stock, though Baird’s Ross Mayfield expressed belief that a lot of pain has already been priced into the shares while still anticipating continued volatility ahead.

“Getting close to capitulation in $NVDA,” Alphatrends founder Brian Shannon posted on X.tting close to capitulation, and Jared Blikre said that Thursday marked the seventh session since 2010 in which Nvidia fell at least 10% and recovered at least half of the decline by the close.

This is very much a one-way flow story for retail.

Vanda Research, via Yahoo Finance

HSBC downgraded the chipmaker to hold on Friday, pointing out that the stock will likely languish until the company lays out a permanent succession plan.

Equities faced additional friction from economic data showing persistent inflationary pressures. The Producer Price Index rose 0.3% in October on a monthly basis, while wholesale prices gained 6.5% from 12 months earlier, marking the largest annual advance since November 2022. Economists polled by Dow Jones had previously expected headline PPI to rise 0.4%.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller stated in London that additional monetary tightening is necessary to preserve the central bank’s credibility, noting that if the core index came in around 0.3% month-over-month or higher, the central bank should consider a 0.5-percentage-point rate hike at the December meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan also said that at least two 0.25-point rate hikes are needed to contain inflation and that the pace of tightening could accelerate.

TD Securities US rates strategist Molly Brooks said that inflation is stubbornly high and that the Fed will need to act a little bit quicker and more aggressively. As a result, the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.10%, increasing borrowing costs and weighing on growth-oriented technology valuations.

The semiconductor sell-off rippled across the broader technology sector on Friday. Advanced Micro Devices tumbled 9%, while Broadcom dropped 5.1% and Cisco Systems declined 5.70%. The Nasdaq Composite led major indexes lower with a 1.45% decline to 24,998, and the S&P 500 slid 0.82% to 7,530. Elsewhere on the market, Modine Manufacturing surged 28.41% following reports that Samsung Electronics was exploring a potential acquisition of the thermal management company.

Earlier coverage: Stock Futures Edge Higher as Nvidia Shares See Slight Recovery

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