For three years, Wall Street bought the artificial intelligence boom through one ticker. This week, it went shopping for substitutes.
Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) founder Jensen Huang resigned as CEO and board member Thursday after the board opened a probe into reports that he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is now interim CEO.
The money did not leave the chip trade. It changed address.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) and Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) were the two best performers in the S&P 100 this week, while Nvidia was among the three worst stocks in the entire S&P 500.
Huang’s Exit Breaks the AI Trade’s Center of Gravity
Nvidia traded near $162 on Friday afternoon, down about 13% from last Friday’s close of $186.64. The stock is on track for a sixth straight weekly loss, a losing streak it had suffered only four times before, in 2002, 2008 and twice in 2012.
Friday brought no relief. A new report from Bloomberg said 22 servers built by Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) and packed with restricted Nvidia H800 chips ended up in a Shanghai data center tied to a company founded by Alice Huang. Dell fell more than 8%.
HSBC downgraded Nvidia to Hold and slashed its price target to $170 from $365. The bank said its earnings outlook for fiscal 2028 is intact, but the stock now trades at 11 times forward earnings, its lowest multiple in 15 years.
“We believe the uncertainties will prevail until a permanent succession plan is laid out and the new CEO is able to demonstrate execution capabilities,” Frank Lee, global head of tech hardware and semiconductor research at HSBC, said in a note Friday.
Chart of the Week: Broadcom’s Best Week Ever Against Nvidia
Broadcom is wrapping up its best week ever against Nvidia.
The Broadcom-to-Nvidia price ratio jumped 35.4% this week, the biggest weekly gain in data going back to Broadcom’s 2009 listing. The previous record, nearly 33%, came in the week ended Dec. 13, 2024, after Broadcom’s earnings.
Broadcom-to-Nvidia price ratio, weekly percentage change since 2009. Source: TradingView
AMD and Broadcom Grab the Crown
AMD was the S&P 100’s top performer, up about 18% for the week near $531.
The stock ran from $404.40 on Nov. 5 to $585.30 on Thursday, a gain of nearly 45% in five sessions, as investors bet that Nvidia’s leadership vacuum would push customers toward its closest rival. Over the same stretch, the Nvidia-to-AMD price ratio fell almost 37%, its steepest five-day drop since August 2002.
Friday was a reality check. AMD slid about 9%, its worst session since Nov. 5, erasing roughly a third of the rally. Even so, the stock is up 142% this year, while Nvidia is down about 15%.
Broadcom followed closely, up nearly 18% from last Friday’s $293.69 to about $345, its best week since early April.
The custom-chip maker jumped 8.8% on Monday as chipmakers rebounded and rose another 5.5% on Thursday, the day Huang left. On Friday, it gave back about 5% after Rothschild & Co downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy and lowered its price target to $398 from $595.
Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET) rounded out the podium, up about 15% for the week, as the AI networking trade caught the same rotation out of Nvidia.
The broader market held up. By Friday afternoon, the S&P 500 was up about 2.4% for the week near 7,550, and the Nasdaq 100 was up about 3.5% near 27,930, despite falling 1.3% on Friday.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH), which holds Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom among its largest positions, was up about 2% for the week. The headline number hid a violent reshuffle inside the fund.
Hot Inflation Puts a Fed Hike in Play
The chip drama played out against a hawkish turn from the Federal Reserve.
Consumer prices rose 0.4% in October, above the 0.3% forecast, while core prices climbed 0.3%, against 0.2% expected, according to data released Tuesday.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller then raised the stakes.
“I believe a 50-basis-point hike in the policy rate should be considered at the December meeting,” Waller said.
Friday’s producer price index offered a small break. Wholesale prices rose 0.3% in October, below the 0.4% forecast, though annual producer inflation reached 6.5%, the highest since November 2022.
Bank of America now expects three straight rate hikes, in December, January and March, taking the federal funds rate to a range of 4.5% to 4.75%.
“After Oct CPI, the Fed looks further behind the curve on inflation. It no longer has the luxury of hiking at a quarterly pace,” Bank of America economist Aditya Bhave said in a report Friday.
According to Bhave, markets are now pricing nearly 50 basis points of hikes over the next two Fed meetings.
Bonds sold off. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.15% on Friday, its highest since mid-October and up about 29 basis points from last Friday. The 30-year yield climbed to 5.48%, while the 2-year yield held near 4.87%.
Higher yields weighed on assets that pay no interest. Gold fell about 5% for the week to $3,879 an ounce, while Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) slid about 9% and dropped below $70,000.
Nvidia Without Huang
Next week, the question shifts from who sold Nvidia to what Nvidia says.
The chipmaker reports fiscal third-quarter results Tuesday, Nov. 17, followed by its first earnings call without Huang at the helm.
According to Benzinga Pro data, options traders are pricing an implied move of 9.1% in Nvidia stock after the report.
For AMD and Broadcom, this week was a coronation. Tuesday will show whether it was also a transfer of business, or only of sentiment.
Photo: Shutterstock
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